Nuisance caused by trafficking in and using drugs on the streets can be tackled through general local bye-laws, such as a prohibition on the assembly of more than a given number of persons, or on the use of the public highway for purposes other than that for which it is intended. The use of emergency powers should be limited to situations in which there really is an emergency as defined in sections 175 and 176 of the Municipalities Act. In this connection reference should be made to the government's standpoint on the study of municipal emergency powers, which was communicated to the chair of the Standing Committee on the Interior in a letter from the Minister of the Interior of 21 March 1995.
Trafficking in drugs - particularly hard drugs - in dwellings causes a great deal of nuisance to neighbours. It is often flats or apartments which are involved, where neighbours have to put up with addicts coming to the building, and may regard the accompanying phenomena as threatening. It is not always the tenant who is trafficking; sometimes a tenant may be pressurised (and rewarded with small quantities of drugs for his or her own use) into tolerating the trafficking; in other cases the premises may be sublet or used illegally.
Where the property belongs to private landlords, especially housing associations, civil proceedings may be instituted to evict the tenant causing the nuisance. In other cases, where the property is owned by someone with an interest in the drug trafficking or by a speculator who is not interested in the well-being of his or her tenants, this may not be a solution. Prosecuting the dealer will often not prevent the trafficking being continued on the same premises by someone else.
Particularly in neighbourhoods where the social structure is decaying, there is a need to take steps to combat degeneration as a result of drug trafficking from private dwellings, no matter whether it is just beginning or has already reached a more advanced stage. Where residents report that this is happening, and the seriousness of their complaints can be confirmed by police investigations, it ought to be possible temporarily to seal a dwelling, until clients cease to seek out drugs there. At present this is only possible to a limited extent because under the provisions of article 10 of the Constitution a dwelling must remain accessible to its occupants and members of their family*. Under the same provisions, formal legal grounds are required before a dwelling can be sealed because such action is desirable on account of nuisance caused by drugs. An amendment to the Municipalities Act is therefore being drafted to make the physical sealing of dwellings possible. The violation of privacy which this will entail can be justified by the need to combat nuisance caused by drugs and by the notion that people who allow drug trafficking to take place in their home have to a large extent themselves violated the private nature of the dwelling.