RIP Amsterdam

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dionysian
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28 May 2011, 10:22 pm

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20110527/wl_nm/us_dutch_cannabis

Quote:

AMSTERDAM (Reuters) – The Dutch government on Friday said it would start banning tourists from buying cannabis from "coffee shops" and impose restrictions on Dutch customers by the end of the year.

The Netherlands is well known for having one of Europe's most liberal soft drug policies that has made its cannabis shops a popular tourist attraction, particularly in Amsterdam.

Backed by the far-right party of anti-immigrant politician Geert Wilders, the coalition government that came into power last year announced plans to curb drug tourism as part of a nationwide program to promote health and fight crime.

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SPKx
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28 May 2011, 10:24 pm

Good, now people can concentrate on the many wonderful museums in the city.

techstepgenr8tion
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28 May 2011, 10:33 pm

If a bunch of dippy foreigners are coming over to glut themselves and forget how to act it makes sense.

Hopefully we can fix that problem - and a lot of Mexico's problems - in a similar fashion.

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blauSamstag
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28 May 2011, 11:03 pm

SPKx wrote:

Good, now people can concentrate on the many wonderful museums in the city.

And don't forget the red light district.

A guy i know tells me that in his Navy years, in the 80's, he ended up in amsterdam once.

He says that among the ladies he saw on display was a woman so venerable and grandmotherly that she looked as though she'd bake him a batch of cookies and show him her photo album.

cave_canem
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29 May 2011, 8:56 am

blauSamstag wrote:

He says that among the ladies he saw on display was a woman so venerable and grandmotherly that she looked as though she'd bake him a batch of cookies and show him her photo album.

that is just so..... creepy.

different strokes I guess...

Wallourdes
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29 May 2011, 9:38 am

I must have missed this on the news here .

This has been going on for almost a decade now. The links to organised crime is the main reason that this action is taken, since it is illegal for shop holders to buy cannabis but legal to sell - it has to do with the gedogen (link).
So the circuit behind the production and distribution isn't regulated by the state, it's a free-for-all for those who dare. Yes this also means culling the competition.

This also has to do with the image The Netherlands would like to express to the outside world, which is somewhere near this now:

becoming something like this in the near future:

Same thing happening to de Wallen, the red light district. With the city of Amsterdam closing down or relocating prostitution to a single back alley, away from the main streets.
The connections to organised crime and forced prostitution has also been made here, like that of the brothel Yab Yum (link).

Yes, The Netherlands has gone from far-left to far-right in the last forty years.

Btw You highlighted Geert Wilders, but I don't get why?

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dionysian
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29 May 2011, 9:43 am

Wallourdes wrote:

Btw You highlighted Geert Wilders, but I don't get why?

To highlight that the right wing was doing this.

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ruveyn
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29 May 2011, 12:15 pm

dionysian wrote:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20110527/wl_nm/us_dutch_cannabis

Quote:

That is a damned shame. I can see banning Muslims, but I cannot see banning pot.

ruveyn

Wallourdes
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29 May 2011, 12:43 pm

dionysian wrote:

Wallourdes wrote:

Btw You highlighted Geert Wilders, but I don't get why?

To highlight that the right wing was doing this.

Incidentally, yes. But Geert Wilders had little to no role played in this. It was all the other right wing parties who've done the groundwork in this.

blauSamstag
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29 May 2011, 2:01 pm

It's sad that people are so easily led down that path.

I mean, the right wing is anti-vice, fine, whatever, don't partake.

But it's rather fiendish to make the argument that since a business which is legal is vulnerable to abuse by organized crime, obviously the best way to deal with organized crime is to restrict that business.

Rather than to go after the crime rings.

And they don't even have to complain about the immorality.

Oodain
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29 May 2011, 2:09 pm

well a solution to the crime problem would be state regulated production, not to mention the jobs it would create as well.

tax it and use it to combat addiction and funding medical services

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Wallourdes
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29 May 2011, 4:32 pm

Oodain wrote:

well a solution to the crime problem would be state regulated production, not to mention the jobs it would create as well.

tax it and use it to combat addiction and funding medical services

Regulation of production and distribution would help alot if it didn't raise so many other subjects, like:

- When softdrug A is legal why can't softdrug B be legal too?
- On top of that, hard drugs why not?
-- Alcohol is a hard drug too, so why not drug X, Y and Z?
- Organised crime is suffering big time on these new legalisations, what will they do?
- What would Europe think and/or do?

I know this sounds like a drag, which it is, but this is politics.

Oodain
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29 May 2011, 4:37 pm

the danish government gave up on their war on drugs last year, they had been warned by the inhabitants of christiania that it would only result in actual crime and not the controlled sale pusher street provided, now half a decade later they are only starting to learn the lesson.

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Wallourdes
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29 May 2011, 4:56 pm

Oodain wrote:

Fighting crime is like mopping with the watertap running, it's necessary but unavoidable.

Well like they say in English: "When the steed is stolen, the stable-door is locked", it has to go gravely wrong before preventive measures can/will be taken.

Oodain
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29 May 2011, 5:04 pm

unfortunately that is the case, all the more reason to weed out the laws that only inhibit personal freedom.
free up some resources for actual crime fighting.

i lived in ijmuiden outside amsterdam for some time, i miss the atmosphere in the netherlands, i might even move there at some point.

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the scent of the tamarillo is pungent and powerfull,
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