Amsterdam's announcement last June sounded so patently absurd to Reuters that its article about the news was placed in the ¡°Oddly Enough¡± category. Ban smoking in Amsterdam? Smoking something they aren't allowed at home is exactly why thousands of tourists flock there every year. But the prime minister was unequivocal, vowing that the city¡¯s coffee shops ¡°will be smoke-free¡± when the ban takes effect on July 1, 2008.

Eight months after the announcement, though, the Dutch health minister, Ab Klink, has told lawmakers that smoking could continue at the shops, as long as no tobacco is in the mix, according to the Dutch News Service. Those who prefer to accent their marijuana high with a bit of tobacco as well will have to go outside or to separate tobacco-smoking rooms. The alternative will be going tobacco-free, as the ban seeks, by smoking marijuana alone.

"Klink does not expect that cannabis users will switch en masse to 'pure' joints," the Dutch report said. "He will arrange a study, though, of whether the smoking habits of coffee shop visitors change after the ban."

Several areas in Germany have been relaxing their smoking rules as well, Der Spiegel reported today. In the east, a court ruled in favor of exempting establishments that are too small to be subdivided into smoking and non-smoking sections. In the southwest, hookah bars were exempted by another court, which noted that their very business was based on smoking. And in Bavaria, in the southeast, local officials decided to allow smoking in festival tents, which are filled with hordes of merrymakers during Oktoberfest.

Back in the United States, Minnesotans have seized on a loophole in their state's new law, which permits actors to smoke on stage during performances at theaters where the audience is otherwise barred from lighting up. In short order, dozens of bars around the state were declaring themselves to be theaters, with their patrons transformed into actors and playbills circulated, in scenes described by one newspaper as "theater of the absurd."

"We call the production, 'Before the Ban!'," one owner gleefully announced to The Associated Press.

State authorities, of course, are wise to the dodge, though it is unclear how much they can do about it until the law can be changed. For example, Tank's Bar in Babbitt, Minn., was ticketed for violating the smoking ban two weeks ago despite the theater loophole, but the bar promised that the smoking show would go on.

"We've been waiting, so that we can show to the rest of the world that this is a perfectly legal activity,"Mark Benjamin, the owner's lawyer, told Minnesota Public Radio. "The smoking ban, as written, is currently unenforceable."