Amsterdam has become the first city in the Netherlands to ban smoking weed at school, after school chiefs complained to the mayor that the students were showing up too high to function.

The city’s mayor, Eberhard van der Laan, introduced the law banning smoking weed in school this week.

Marijuana is widely available in Holland, and, although it is technically illegal, police can’t prosecute people for possession of small amounts.

The downside of the lax rules is that Dutch children are frequently exposed to marijuana, and that they often start at a young age while their brains are still developing.

City spokeswoman Iris Reshef says schools have always forbidden pot, but found it difficult to enforce the policy when students smoked on or near campus and challenged administrators to do anything about it.

“It’s not really what you have in mind as an educator, that children would be turning up for class stoned, or drunk either for that matter,” she said.

“But it has been a problem for some schools.”

Areas like schools and playgrounds will become “no toking zones” as of January 1st.

The move coincides with the plan to ditch the previously proposed legislation that would keep tourists from indulging in the sticky icky while visiting Amsterdam.

After several decades of the tolerance policy, Dutch marijuana usage rates are in the middle of international norms, higher than those in neighboring Germany, but lower than those in France, Britain or the United States.

Jordan Shepherd | Elite.