It looks like the Southern three provinces of The Netherlands will have to ban tourists from the coffeeshops from May 1st, and force Dutch customers to register themselves by applying for a so-called "weed pass".

If all coffeeshops in Limburg, Zeeland and Brabant will actually comply with the new policy remains to be seen. Several shops have stated they will not enforce the new rules in their establishments. Coffeeshop owners say that by not comlying they hope to provoke an indictment that would give them a change to attest in court to the negative consequences of the implementation of this new policy.

Since the 1970s, the Netherlands’ legendary cannabis coffeeshops have been officially “tolerated” by the government, meaning that while technically illegal, they’ve nonetheless operated openly, with hundreds of locations in Amsterdam alone selling limited amounts of marijuana to the public.

Despite their being tightly regulated and contributing considerably to the nation’s tourism industry, however, the conservative government has been steadily working to curtail or eliminate the coffeeshops, specifically by proposing a “Weed Pass” plan that would restrict access to only citizens of the Netherlands willing to register as a member of a private club, with each coffeeshop allowed just 2,000 members.

The Weed Pass plan was passed into law in 2011 and was set to take effect starting with several locations in the south of the Netherlands on May 1 of this year. But this week several important developments have thrown the future of the law into doubt. Most notably, the coalition forming the Dutch government dissolved on April 23, amid an internal argument over budgetary priorities.