Utrecht's ban on using hard drugs in public will expire on 1 November 2026 unless the council acts. According to briefing documents prepared for the council's 10 September session, the college of mayor and aldermen wants to remove the ban's expiry date entirely, making it a permanent part of the city's public-order rules.

The public information meeting is scheduled for Thursday, 10 September, from 19:30 to 20:30 in the Stadhuishal. Its purpose is to hear an official explanation of the evaluation and responses from parties in the city. The agenda lists committee discussion on 17 September and council consideration on 1 October as the expected next steps; those dates are provisional.

The city-commissioned evaluation, by MoCCA Veiligheidsmanagement and dated 30 June 2026, says the public-use ban entered Utrecht's general local ordinance (APV) on 1 August 2023. It applies citywide, with enforcement focused on locations including Lucasbolwerk, Hieronymusplantsoen, Park Lepelenburg and the station area. The report describes a stepped approach: officers first ask people to move their use indoors, with further enforcement possible for repeated use.

What the evaluation found

The evaluation examines a package of ten measures, combining enforcement with care and outreach. Its overall conclusion supports retaining that combined approach. It describes smaller, more dispersed groups as making contact easier for outreach workers, while acknowledging persistent problems in some areas.

That is not proof of the ban's individual effect. The researchers explicitly caution that causation is difficult to establish, that no intervention operates alone, and that recorded incidents can change with reporting behaviour or enforcement activity.

The report records 159 temporary area-exclusion orders around Lucasbolwerk, Hieronymusplantsoen and Park Lepelenburg in 2025, down from 295 in 2024. In the station-area and Lombok enforcement zone, the equivalent figures rose from 850 to 955.

Interview participants gave their sense of safety an average score of 7.3 out of 10 for Lucasbolwerk, 5.5 for Lepelenburg and Hieronymusplantsoen, and 4.5 for Van Sijpesteijnkade and Stationsstraat. These were small discussion groups: four participants around Lucasbolwerk, three around Lepelenburg and three around the station area. The ratings are not representative neighbourhood survey results.

The report also records a rise in police nuisance registrations in the Binnenstad from 4,765 in 2024 to 5,089 in 2025. Separately, municipal resident reports of drug-related nuisance rose citywide from 686 to 1,066, or 55 percent; within the Binnenstad, the increase was 33 percent. Those measures cover different areas and categories and should not be treated as a single count of incidents caused by hard-drug use.

Care alongside enforcement

The evaluation identifies insufficient care provision as a major constraint. It reports long waiting lists and a mismatch between available care and some users' needs, and recommends more varied care options. Interviewees described appropriate care as central to lasting improvement, with enforcement serving a supporting role. The report also notes that fines and resulting debts can hinder recovery.

The evaluation counts 446 fines for breaching the ban in 2025, compared with 389 in 2024, issued by police and municipal enforcement combined. It says 80 percent of the 2025 fines were issued in the Binnenstad.

In published written questions dated 16 April 2026, Partij voor de Dieren, BIJ1 and Student & Starter questioned fines above €400, compared with €170 for sleeping outside, and asked the executive to exercise similar restraint in issuing them. That earlier document cites a different fines series, 264 in 2024 and 368 in 2025, from an enforcement report. It is not the same series as the evaluation's combined police and municipal totals; the documents cited here do not establish why they differ.

The evaluation's figures for people registered in the PGAx case-management system also need care in interpretation. It records 120 people associated with hard-drug use and nuisance in autumn 2023, 54 on 1 August 2024 and 87 on 1 February 2026. Of that last group, 28 had Utrecht recorded as their residence, 21 lived elsewhere and 38 had no known residence. These are dated administrative records, not a count of everyone using hard drugs in Utrecht; the report explicitly says the register is incomplete.

The 10 September briefing gives councillors an opportunity to question those findings before considering whether to remove the sunset clause. The proposal has not yet been adopted.