The 2011 Cannabis Cup in Amsterdam was chugging along business as usual like it had been for the last 24 years. That is until the police raided it Wednesday afternoon, the day before Thanksgiving.

The Cannabis Cup Expo, which is a giant hall filled with merchant booths and Cannabis Cup attendees, was interrupted by dozens of uniformed police officers.

This year’s Expo was held at the new location Borchland, which is in the south of Amsterdam.

Police entered Borchland and closed off all exits. Everyone inside was subjected to search and seizure before exiting, with all cannabis and related items seized without arrest or prosecution.

However one of the merchants apparently was arrested for possessing more than 500 grams of cannabis. Amsterdam has a rule of tolerance where licensed coffeeshops can be in possession of a maximum of 500 grams of cannabis on premises.

Some attendees reported a mass smoke out taking place as the police were conducting their operation, with people smoking as much of their cannabis as possible before law enforcement made their confiscations.

It was the first time the Cannabis Cup was raided by police in its 24 years in Amsterdam. After the police operation, the remainder of the Cannabis Cup evidently continued normally, with its normally scheduled conclusion the following day.

The Dutch government, currently more conservative than usual, has waged a war on cannabis and to some extent the Red Light District.

In the last three years, many changes to decades old soft drugs laws have taken place in Holland.

Hundreds of cannabis coffeeshops have been forced to close. Some border town coffeeshops have gone from being public establishments to private clubs, where only Dutch citizens can enter. Hallucinogenic magic mushrooms were outlawed (although the enterprising Dutch have found a work around by selling the legal Magic Truffles – same high, different fungi). And reminiscent of New York’s Time Square cleanup, Amsterdam’s Red Light District was shrunk by almost one third.

Cannabis was decriminalized for small amounts decades ago. However there are many contradictions in the cannabis policy of The Netherlands.

For instance, licensed coffeeshops are allowed to sell up to 5 grams of cannabis per customer per day. They are allowed to stock up to 500 grams on location. But it is illegal to mass produce cannabis. So basically coffeeshops can legally sell a product that is illegal to obtain.

It is not unusual for police to periodically raid coffeeshops. They conduct searches to ensure the shops are abiding by the rules, such as no hard drugs, no minors, no large stockpiles. One coffeeshop dealer stated that their coffeeshop is raided twice a year. It’s just part of the game.

The national government of The Netherlands has stated its objective of turning all cannabis coffeeshops in the country into private clubs, with Amsterdam supposedly forced to oblige by 2015 by some reports.

However some see Amsterdam as a special case and doubt that it will ever be subjected to the coffeeshop privatization scheme.

Some believe that the changes taking place are more bark than bite, that it is simply a show that something is being done in response to the ceaseless complaints of Holland’s soft drugs policies by its neighbors, the EU, and the US.

Then there’s the issue of enforcement. Some municipalities are against the changes being made by the national government, and enforcement is a local responsibility.

When magic mushrooms were made illegal for instance, the mayor of Amsterdam stated that he will not waste city resources policing vegetables.

Whatever happens, the following months will be quite interesting as the drama plays out.

On a positive note, regarding the Cannabis Cup raid, police were reportedly nice and polite during the operation.

The Dutch government announced that cannabis with high levels of THC will be re-classified as a hard drug, putting it in the same category as cocaine and heroin.

Currently small quantities of cannabis, regardless of its potency, are considered soft drugs and are decriminalized in the Netherlands. However hard drugs of any quantity are strictly illegal.

Dutch media reported a very strange situation that is playing out in Holland.

The southern Dutch city of Maastricht, which is a border town in close proximity to Belgium and Germany, has put into force a ban on tourists from visiting cannabis coffeeshops in the city.

City authorities claim that the large number of tourists coming into town to buy cannabis is causing mayhem in the form of public disorder and traffic disruption, with about 6,000 daily cannabis coffeeshop visitors mostly coming from nearby Belgium and Germany.

Strangely though, the ban does not apply to Belgian or German tourists, who are the ones supposedly causing the problems! Only people who don’t hold a Dutch, German, or Belgian passport are banned.

At the peak there were approximately 1,200 cannabis coffeeshops in Holland, but after the government started its crusade against cannabis closing many coffeeshops down, there are only 700 coffeeshops left operating today, mostly in Amsterdam.

The Maastricht ban is seen as a test case which may be implemented across the country.

Last year 58 cannabis coffeeshops in The Netherlands were located too close to schools, according to the Dutch statistics office Netherlands Statistics.

Coffeeshops are supposed to be located at least 350 meters away from secondary education schools.

Dutch Education Minister Marja van Bijsterveldt subsequently stated that the coffeeshops must move so that, “…students’ educational careers don’t go up in smoke.”

In 2010, Holland had 650 cannabis coffeeshops. Holland has 12 provinces and most cannabis coffeeshops are located in North Holland province (which contains the city of Amsterdam where most of the nation’s coffeeshops reside) and South Holland province.

The Dutch town of Heerlen has announced plans to ban cannabis smoking later this month.

Heerlen is attempting to curb young people from smoking cannabis in public.

Dutch international football star Wesley Sneijder and his wife Yolanthe Cabau van Kasbergen have earned a spot on the shortlist for the Master Kackadoris Prize 2010, which is given out by the Society against Quackery VtdK.

The Master Kackadoris Prize is a spoof award handed out to the entity believed by the society to have done the most to further bogus medical treatment for the given year.

Sneijder and his wife earned the nomination for their promotion of the Power Balance wristband.  The couple convinced four members of the Dutch national squad to wear the device during the World Cup final, which The Netherlands lost to Spain 1-0.

An item was hurled at the Golden Coach of Queen Beatrix of The Netherlands today as the horse drawn carriage departed the Queen’s Palace en route to the Dutch parliament.

The item hit the coach and the person who threw the object was apprehended.

The item in question that was tossed and hit the carriage turned out to be a candle holder.  No damage was sustained.

Sensitivities to such events are high in Holland since The Royal Family was attacked on Queen’s Day 2009, when a deranged man plowed his car into a crowd in an attempt to hit the Queen and The Royals during the day’s national celebrations.  The Royal Family was unscathed in the incident, however several spectators and the driver were killed in the crash.

Rotterdam Holland – home of the largest port in Europe and formerly largest in the world – has been named the best festival city of the world in 2010 by the International Festivals and Events Association.

Rotterdam was awarded the title due to its creativeness and superb infrastructure.  Also cited was its effective organizational qualities in hosting multiple events simultaneously.

Rotterdam is the second largest city in The Netherlands following Amsterdam.