THE HAGUE, 04/02/10 - Drugs policy will form the next obstacle on the coalition partners' ever more bumpy road. The Christian democrats (CDA) and Labour (PvdA) are this time clashing over cannabis.

The Lower House is debating today with four ministers - Ernst Hirsch Ballin (Justice), Ab Klink (Health), Guusje ter Horst (Home Affairs) and Andre Rouvoet (Youth and Family) - on the infamous Dutch cannabis policy. The CDA is putting forward a series of proposals to shift the cabinet towards tougher measures. The PvdA will not support these.

CDA would prefer to see all the so-called 'coffee-shops' disappear. PvdA on the contrary wants these shops, licensed to sell limited quantities of cannabis an hashish to anyone of legal age, to be given more possibilities for buying in their stock. To this end hemp cultivation under government supervision should be set up.

The road to the finish - not collapsing before the general elections in 2011 - that the coalition is trying to stay on is strewn with obstacles CDA and PvdA have themselves been scattering around. Recently, a short but serious cabinet crisis erupted over a report on the invasion of Iraq. Other bumps and potholes that might cause a fatal collision include the purchase of the Joint Strike Fighter aircraft, the war in Afghanistan and reforms necessary to bring down the budget deficit.

No crisis will emerge today. The Lower House more likely will serve as a dating agency between CDA and the conservatives (VVD), who also want a tougher line. Both parties want, for example, the maximum sentence for the import and export of cannabis to be raised from four to 12 years.

CDA MP Cisca Joldersma also wants the legal distinction between cannabis ('soft drugs') and drugs like cocaine and XTC ('hard drugs') dropped. She is also putting forward a private member's bill to ban preparatory treatments for the cultivation of cannabis, meaning that shops that sell growing equipment (grow-shops) will be banned. "The policy of toleration is simply bankrupt, we will tackle everything that helps on the road to zero coffee-shops."

PvdA wants cannabis kept as a tolerated 'soft drug'. "You know it will be sold anyway. If you do not ensure that it can be supplied in a normal way, it is really naive to come up with that sort of measure", argues PvdA MP Lea Bouwmeester. "Coffee-shops should simply become normal and transparent companies, so that there is no room any more for illegality."