and intentions of the coffee shop managers is decisive in how they act
towards them. Another difference is observed in relation to the two
interests of the rule enforcer described by Becker. The police officers
interviewed did not have to justify their existence and they did not have
to gain respect by coercion. This is explained by (a) the routine charac-
ter of the monitoring, which has created a predictable situation and a
modus operandi known to all parties and (b) the criminalization of can-
nabis in recent years. The effect of this process is that the position of
police officers in relation to cannabis sellers is not questioned.
Keywords:Moral entrepreneur; cannabis; control; police;
criminalizationINTRODUCTION
InOutsiders( 1963 ),Becker stated that crime is not only the business of
criminals or deviants, but also of other professionals, such as politicians,
judges and police officers. Becker coined the concept of the moral entrepre-
neur for those who are actively involved in defining certain kinds of beha-
viour as criminal or deviant. While Becker did his studies on deviance in
Chicago of the late 1940s and early 1950s, this study focuses on a city and
country with a different approach to cannabis.^1 In this paper we travel
through time and space to Rotterdam in the 2010s. The Netherlands is
perceived as a liberal country with a tolerant approach to topics such as
cannabis, sex, abortion and euthanasia. One could wonder whether the
concept of ‘moral entrepreneur’ in the Netherlands has a different meaning
and whether the Dutch act in a different way because of this liberal climate.
However, in recent years a process of criminalization of cannabis has taken
place, which I will discuss fully later on in this paper. Rotterdam is the city
in the Netherlands where this process has had its strongest effect. The
mayor of the city was particularly active in tightening the supervision of
‘coffee shops’, places where people buy cannabis. Later on, as the minister
of Justice and Safety, he continued his campaign against coffee shops. In
this current context, one can also explore how the police operate in relation
to coffee shops.
In this paper I focus on police officers who monitor coffee shops in
Rotterdam and try to explain the way they interact with cannabis retailers
by relating it to the historical and local context in which they operate.
Rotterdam, an ethnically mixed harbour city, is the second largest city in
140 THADDEUS MU ̈LLER