European court weighs cannabis ban for foreigners

[theantiadult]

there should not b n e age restriction either

 

[augustaB]

You don't really get fucked up by the sun do you? However I can totally imagine Spanish people hating on the tourists that come to their Costas to get drunk and act retarded. They find the economic advantages great enough to let it go on though. These are the choices they make. Obviously the choices of the people of Maastricht are different. Please stop acting like the only thing tourists come to Holland for are drugs and parties, it's arrogant, offensive and ignorant.

You mean they're still coming for windmills and tulip bulbs or as Voltaire is supposed to have said "Canaux, canards, canaille"?

 

[Falcon0r]

there should not b n e age restriction either

Novel idea.

 

[DKKON1]

You mean they're still coming for windmills and tulip bulbs or as Voltaire is supposed to have said "Canaux, canards, canaille"?

x2!

 

[drug_mentor]

I really don't think the Dutch want to go down this path, they will lose so much money if it eventually ends up tourists can't smoke weed there at all.

 

[Psych0naut]

For once a sensible decision regarding our Dutch drug legislation and on time as well. Misuse and misbehaviour by intoxicated foreign tourists already caused us the ban on psilocybe (magic) mushrooms, because some French girl who already had severe mental issues to begin with, which even her own parents confirmed, allegedly took psilocybe mushrooms and jumped off a a bridge to kill herself after which her parents demanded from the Dutch goverment that these "awful suicide causing mushrooms" be banned. And in the following weeks after that, while the media was still in a frenzy due to French girls death, several Brittish cunts in seperate incidents managed to cause horrendously stupid accidents after they drank themselves half to death only to chase their booze high with a full dose of psychoactive mushrooms with no previous experience and without any supervision or the right place to trip at. One of them even nearly killed several other innocent bystanders while driving a car around a camping area in the middle of the night, missing tents with people sleeping in them only by a hair. Predictably the following media frenzy caused the outlawing of the previously completely legal psilocybe mushrooms, made even worse by misinformation from the press and politicians jumping on the bandwagon to score some election points by ranting about those "dangerous and toxic evil mushrooms, which should be banned outright!". So, thanks to the a bunch of idiotic and unresponcibly acting foreign tourists, we already lost the magic mushrooms. The present right wing Christian goverment is already jumping on any excuse to get rid of the semi-legalized cannabis policy, and I am not letting misbehaving foreign tourists spoil yet another of our rights we have as Dutch citizens, for which we foughts for several decades.

thats terrible if they restrict who cando that its discrimination 2.

According to Dutch Law, it isn't discrimation. Hell, according to any countries law it isn't discrimanition if you limit the sale of illegal drugs only to that country's inhabitants. It's a privilege for the citizens of that country, not a right for every person to enjoy. You think it's discrimination because I can't buy a gun in Switzerland or the US because I don't live there? It's their birthright as citizens of those countries, not mine.

there should not b n e age restriction either

Ow yeah shure, any toddler or pre-teen should just be able to walk in a coffeeshop and be able to buy cannabis. Did your momma smoke copious amounts of weed while you were around when you were a baby? Cause that second-hand smoke must have had quite some effects on your development ... A better minimum age would be 20 since almost all young adults have stopped growing and developing at that age, and smoking cannabis or drinking alcohol can't influence the process of development anymore past that age. But the Dutch goverment thinks 18 is fair enough, and that's fine with me too. And just for the record, I don't think smoking cannabis or hash damages the brain, it might only trigger dorment psychological ilnesses in people who already had them anyway. But smoking it while your brain is still developing as is the case in teens is a stupid idea in my opinion.

You mean they're still coming for windmills and tulip bulbs or as Voltaire is supposed to have said "Canaux, canards, canaille"?

Thank god the tourists visiting the Netherlands aren't solely coming here just to smoke themselves silly, if they would it says a lot more about them than about the Netherlands. But as you know as someone living in the Netherlands we don't even need any tourists. Shure, tourism income is a nice addition to the national income but the Netherlands isn't exactly dependent on tourism like many other countries in Europe, especially many of the Meditarenean countries such as France and Italy and especially Spain and Portugal. We could definately live without any foreign visitors.

I really don't think the Dutch want to go down this path, they will lose so much money if it eventually ends up tourists can't smoke weed there at all.

I seriously doubt that either. It would mean closure of plenty of coffeeshops in Amsterdam and a bunch near the borders, but all in all the vast majority wouldn't notice a thing because they depend on local people instead of foreigners. And many coffeeshops in Amsterdam are crappy kapitalistic coffeeshops aimed a making money off of tourists anyway, something we could definately live without. If those foreigners want to get stoned, let them by cannabis or hash in their own countries, and if that isn't possible they should grow it themselves, that ain't so hard anyway.

 

[wellDuh]

Well said Psych0naut

As a longtime visitor since `94 I agree 100% .




I really miss the shrooms but found the sclerotica to be rather nice

 

[EntheoDjinn]

there should not b n e age restriction either

How about some age restrictions:

0-5 organic outdoor strains, e.g. Orange Bud
6-12 light organically grown strains, e.g. Purple Haze
12 - 17 strong but nice, e.g. Nederlicht
18 + Skunky stuff etc., e.g. AK47

 

[Solide]

0-5 .. ? =d

 

[montel]

My wife and I went to Maastricht around 6 or 7 times during 2008 and a couple of times in 2009. Not once did we see any 'crazy tourists running around acting like fools and causing trouble.' Not once.

What we did see were many, many cars parked up in the underground car park from places as far as Italy and the UK - but mostly French, Belgian and German license plates. You would see foreign cars park up, the occupants would head straight for the coffee shops and enjoy a nice peaceful smoke - just as my wife and I did. We never saw one scrap of trouble. - Actually, no - there was one time when some German kids weren't allowed into Kosbor (coffee shop) because they had no ID. - but that was it... and they just left politely in the end.

A few things puzzled me when we went there - and it's been raised in this thread here by other posters as well - They say the coffee shops don't pay tax on the smokes but I suspect this isn't true - In a number of shops, when they were restocking a particular strain, the bags were identical and had a barcode which was scanned. - I also asked one of the security guards at Smokeys (or Missisippi?) if they were taxed and he said the government takes around 17%.

There is one thing that I am certain of - If you make it 'locals only' and exclude foreigners from buying weed then they will lose most of their market/profit overnight. Most Dutch people don't smoke weed - the customers we saw (and in Amsterdam, from my hazy recollections) were almost all tourists. You might see the odd Dutch person in a coffee shop, but not very often. A good example that highlights this is the one coffee shop that is very much 'out of the way' in Maastricht - the downstairs area which is actually the 'coffee shop' was empty and rather dull - head upstairs to the 'pub' and it was full. I don't expect the locals would be able to prop up the weed trade there... not at all. It would just fade away very quickly.

To say that Maastricht university students make up the majority of tokers also seems very strange - It didn't look like that to us - what it looked like was lots of people from the neighbouring countries driving up there for a smoke... bear in mind that, rather obviously, it's not exactly wise to puff loads of weed while you're studying for a degree - Every now and then, fine, but that doesn't explain the constant queues we saw each and every time we went there... in all the major coffee shops. That would have to be the most stoned university in the world - and their grades?!!!

During the period when we were going there - there was a scary article on SKY News (UK) describing how coffee shops were slowly being closed down and how things were getting a lot tougher - the next weekend, when we drove over there - the only thing we noticed (at Easy Going, of all places!) was that they were (a) all open for business as usual and (b) from the 1st of January 2009 they would stay open until 2 or 3 in the morning (instead of closing at around midnight) - Basically, the complete and total opposite to what the media were saying... Thank god.

Thinking about this logically - let's suppose they did make it 'residents only' - what would happen? The Dutch police force would see a huge rise in criminals selling weed openly on the streets - the crime rate would go up and the prisons would be chock full of tourists. I don't see it happening... not really.

I should add that I'm pretty sure Rotterdam tried a 'residents only' approach at one point and failed miserably. I'm not 100% certain though... too much weed

 

[MyDoorsAreOpen]

Montel, if what you're saying is true, it seems to me the only move the Dutch government could make at this point would just be to ban marijuana period, in any form, for anyone, like most countries, and be sure to strictly enforce it for the first few years after the ban. The government would only do this after careful consideration of whether or not they could afford to just dispose of whatever cut (I won't dignify it with the word 'tax') they're taking of that market, in exchange for relief of whatever problems legal availability causes. It's there for everyone or there for no one. No functioning constitutional democracy nowadays can really defend any other way.

 

[montel]

I honestly don't think they'll ever ban it - or change the law and forbid tourists from buying it. There are two factors to take into consideration:

1) The sale of weed will be driven underground and this will cause (much) more trouble for the police.

2) There is simply too much money at stake - As I told my wife on a number of occasions - if Miami was built from the profits of cocaine, then Maastricht was built on the profits of marijuana. Just stand in any one of the coffee shops and take a good look at the queues of people waiting to buy weed... then do the maths. They make millions of euros.... millions.

I still stand by my comment that it IS the tourists who are keeping it legal (okay, 'tolerated') - it's a matter of strength in numbers. If it was made 'residents only' the sales would drop dramatically and then all it would take is one bastard politician to pick up on this and use it in their campaign to get votes (i.e. "vote for me and I'll get rid of the drugs menace!") Without the financial and political means to defend themselves the coffee shops could quite easily find themselves fighting a losing battle - as it stands (today) they're simply too big an industry to mess with.

 

[yoboy]

this would only create a situation in which tourists, to get around the ban, would have to rely on Dutch citizens to buy weed for them

I think that could lead to a lot of rip-offs and the violence that comes with it

but if I was some brokeass Dutch stoner I'd be pretty psyched about this. It's a way to make easy money. Just post up downtown, find the tourists and ask them if they need help getting weed for a small fee

 

[montel]

this would only create a situation in which tourists, to get around the ban, would have to rely on Dutch citizens to buy weed for them

I think that could lead to a lot of rip-offs and the violence that comes with it

but if I was some brokeass Dutch stoner I'd be pretty psyched about this. It's a way to make easy money. Just post up downtown, find the tourists and ask them if they need help getting weed for a small fee

And that's exactly what would happen...

Psych0naut: I must have skimmed your post above but I was particularly touched by your delicate take on tourism in the Netherlands:

"We could definately live without any foreign visitors."

Priceless.

 

[sgurd]

Lots of people I know want to go to Amsterdam. They don't even know that Amsterdam is in Holland. They don't know what currency they have or what language they speak or anything about their country other than their weed situation. I bet most of Holland's tourism is drug tourism because there are so many cooler places to go (no offense holland is bitching).

Holland doesnt exist anymore.. It has been called The Netherlands since hundreds of years. North and South-Holland do exist however, they are provinces in The Netherlands..

Just FYI and because I like correcting people who correct others

 

[MyDoorsAreOpen]

I've never been to the Netherlands, but I find it interesting that every single Dutch person I've met (even those my age or younger) doesn't touch weed, kind of looks down on people who enjoy it, and REALLY does not like his country immediately associated with getting stoned. It doesn't seem to be all that popular or socially acceptable among the locals.

It kind of reminds me of the situation in tourist hotspots around SE Asia, where at first blush there seems to be a hopping bar scene, but dig a little deeper and you'll see that 90% of the drinking and drunken merrymaking there is done by Western tourists, and the locals aren't big drinkers at all. They just tolerate it because it brings in money and jobs.

I think this is an excellent bellwether of what legalized marijuana would look like in North America. I think there would be broad swaths of American and Canadian society (probably the majority) that didn't touch the stuff and wouldn't want anything to do with people who were using it or intoxicated on it, and it would remain wholly unacceptable in many social circles. Social sanction would take the place of legal sanction in ensuring that marijuana use was largely confined to a small, young demographic in liberal places.

In other words, nothing to be afraid of in legalizing it -- once it loses its mild 'I'm a law-breaking badass' cachet, most would just have no interest in the drug and its actual effects.

I say this because it never ceases to amaze me how many American pot smokers, when pressed, could really take or leave the drug's effects on their brains, and smoke[d] it primarily as an act of rebellion, or to be part of a certain social scene. And once they're out of that phase and that scene, their use does not continue. My use definitely defies this pattern. But most smokers I've met here do fit it.

Marijuana is not a drug that lends itself to easy abuse for most people anyway. Its rapid tolerance and diminishing returns means that I can seldom get more than one GOOD high per day, and the mental side effects -- paranoia, social withdrawl, decreased short term memory -- definitely balance out, if not outweigh, the euphoric or beneficial effects for most people.

 

[WhoKahSmknKatapila]

thanks for posting this

 

[EntheoDjinn]

^^ Well I'm sure you're prettywell right there, but the folks who don't care for the effects of illegal drugs, on average, sanction and enjoy the effects of alcohol. And many don't care for the after or long-term effects of it, these being largely negative. It does seem to boil down to choice on a whim/hegemonic notion rather than an informed sense of positive benefits. No rights or wrongs here, just a weird imbalance in my humble opinion. One's OK to do, any other a serious crime (try getting employment even with a minor cannabis conviction).

Mmmm

 

[ianshmian805]

Do you really mean that the Nederlands are not particularly cool in relation to other places, and that it is mainly the cannabis situation that draws most tourists? It certainly draws many tourists, and many of the type that behave in disrespectful ways. However, my own experiences of the Nederlands are that is is a country rich in culture (art, music, architecture and much more) and populated by sophisticated, informed, liberal, kind and polite people.

As a Scot, I find the Nederlands (and especially Amsterdam) to be one of the coolest places in the world - of course there are many other cool places, but Amsterdam is up there among them. IMO anyway.

you basically just described a stoner

 

[neilklonooxyzam]

what ? nooo. If I cant travel to amsterdam anymore and enjoy it what is the point ?? and wont the dutches economy drop due to this ? My family lives in belgium and every time I visit I go to amsterdam. Its a special place and if I couldnt purchase cannabis their anymore it would ruin it !!!