Dutch Government to Ban Tourists From Cannabis Shops

another bad government decision

bad decision for their economy and tourism income. :/

Damn why is marijuana policy moving backwards instead of forwards?

its moving backwards in Holland it seems, some parts of the world are slowly moving forward.

Weaksauce, looks like I'm vacationing on the wrong part of the continent; missed my shot..

Nice Residents avatar 420tom, Im a big fan of their (EARLY!) work and saw them last new years with Primus.

Wow. Glad I have gone twice while I could...

Sad to see. I cant imagine Amsterdam will be able to sustain the kind of economy it has now.....

Fu*king politics and conservative parties

I think they want Colorado or Vancouver to be the new pot stop in the world

Oh well, those two are closer to me anyway.

this is already going on fir a while
the latest news is that the minister wants to introduce it in the southern provinces first, and in the course of next year in the whole country

it isn't sure tough that it will be implemented, a lot of local governments are against it and last time it was feequently in the news(has been quite for a while about the card) there was a dr. at the university of groningen, he is dr. in something to do with legal issues or jutitional or so, don't remember exactly, said that since our weed policy is regulated bu the apv(algemene plaatselijke verordening, local laws made my local governments), the minister can't force the municipalities to implement these laws
so I'm curious how this will end, a lot of the local governments already held a symbolic vte and most had a majority against(symbolic because the minister said that he wants to implement it anyway, if the local governments agree or not)

Yeah, it's a bit strange...definitely a policy I don't see staying around for a long time. In the end, they'll see the $$$ moving other places (like the aforementioned Vancouver) and they'll switch back.

I'm kind of dumbfounded by this, though. Wouldn't this be akin to having bars and offsale restrict sale of alcohol to residents?

Unless this of course is another tactic in trying to move away from the drug trade completely (and by thus, smooth out a wrinkle with the American Gov't). Less drug tourists = less money for the coffeeshops = less coffeeshops, and unless I'm mistaken, didn't the gov't in Amsterdam already cut down on a lot of the coffeshops in the past couple years?

djonkoman, I'm glad I got to visit your fair country when it was still being touted as the "last bastion of freedom". It was an eye opener for my gf at the time, who was very anti-mj (I hid my use from her). She was a criminal justice major, and so we spoke with a few law enforcement officials over there about their mj laws, about the idea of "gateway drugs", etc. Needless to say she (having legally tried it) couldn't see what the big deal was about mj - something that 4 years of undergrad CJ classes had completely fucked up. When you make laws about things that aren't real crimes, you still make real criminals.

(hunting for the "like" button, lol, so i'll just say it, "right on!")

Luckily already been there, that city is amazing. I also heard the news yesterday and I'm planning another Amsterdam trip before this thing might happen. I think it will not be so hard though...banishing tourists it's like a self headshot for their economy.

Amsterdam was very disappointing trying to find quality herb anyway, much of it was premature, wet or just not that good.

much easier to find high quality strains in the states

90% of the consumers are tourists and so the shops dont need to have standard quality

The best stuff we found was from a few locals, not from any shop,

The hash tho was supurb

After a couple of trips to the Dam the magic really wore off... the weed is truly average by todays (Cali's ) standards. It is great being able to partake freely, and to be able to sit about enjoying your stonedness with no worries about the fuzz, but the whole coffeeshop scene is pretty stale and as others have said the vast majority cater to the lowest common denominator i.e. my drunken, violent countrymen.
A lot of the shops have a pretty intimidating atmosphere and the ones that don't are packed 24/7.

The atmosphere on the whole in the city is fantastic though. Really pretty, big enough to have enough clothes shops to entertain the Mrs but small enough to feel homely. Worth a visit just for the fact it's lovely in the summer and has great cafe's and restaurants. All the while being able to get high.

That said, I went to Maastricht a couple months ago and Kosbor pretty much blew anywhere in the Dam out of the water. Great weed and hash, varied selection, great prices and friendly guys. Very busy though.
I have heard that Maastricht already operates a "no tourist" policy (have read reports of French, Belgians etc. being refused entry recently) and the shops all have ID scanners. But my girlfriend and I got in no troubles. Maybe we just looked upstanding and decent.

If this law passes IMHO it's not a big deal. Way I see it, momentum is building for a change in drug laws worldwide anyway. And I'll be living there come September anyway

As an Englishman living here in NL for nearly 20yrs now I've always enjoyed being able to pop to the coffeeshop for my gear and have had little problems if any with bad quality goods.I find this pass idea so unbelievably short sighted it's obvious it's been thought up by our christian politicians who have opposed the coffeeshops since day one.They are constantly telling us we have cut back here there and everywhere and then they want to stop tourists buying weed.These tourists bring in millions of euro's every year.

the ironic thing is that the ministerpresident who started our current policy with coffeeshops is from the same party that is now one of the parties that want to slowly ban it(the cda, a christian centerright party)

I thought Rutte was from the VVD not the CDA

I love it when people try to base political decisions off of a religious view.

and seriously, where are these Christians screaming about Booze and Tobacco? Hell, water kills more than pot. It's just stupid.

As discussed in another thread with djonkoman, this is frightening and some friends of mine had problems in maastricht as stated here!
About quality, I was in Cali 8 months ago and I still feel the other way with an overall (herb & concentrates/"underground" & "overground" prods.) superior quality in NL compared to the US, though you have outstanding medical productions and a maaaajor future potential...argh...don't hit me too hard guys! :/ And yes, as everywhere, it's about knowing where, what, and of course not everything in Dam!

The problem this has IMO, is the rest of the world who are either neutral or against cannabis/legalization are going to say, "Look at them, they are having problems and restricting it further." blah blah etc.
It doesn't help the 'cause/movement'..

BUT, on the other hand, if people don't have a place to go and play [legally], maybe they'll get into and be a part of the movement to legalize.
But, I spose thats asking a lot from the typical person who's going to Dam for a good time..


Be curious to see how crime pans out afterwards, I don't think its going to stop ALL tourists from coming to get high/party...they'll just have to do it illegally...and then what, be punished/jailed for it? And re-create/re-inforce a black market....

you're right, but the CDA was in reign all the time before and already working years to slowly ban it, wich they also openly state in their electionplans(and they're still in the government)
the VVD is only recently really against, there are parts of the VVD that are in favor of legalisation of all drugs(a while ago a VVD-prominent wrote an open letter promoting the legalisation of all drugs, I think it was bolkestein), but there are also that are in favor of a ban or more restriction then now, and rutte belongs to the latter
but if rutte is done and there will be a new leader of the VVD it's very well possible that the partystance will change, while of the CDA it's much less likely they'll turn around
..and the PVV are just lunatics(not even a real party since geert wilders is the only official member, so that he can stay leader without democracy inside the party, if geert wilders steps down the party will pro bably collapse like the LPF in the past, if the PVV even holds up that long)

What I find totally unbelievable djonkoman is that the CDA is in power at all.How can a party that lost so many votes and seats in the tweede Kamer possibly be in power?.Though of course they did sell their souls to the devil (Wilders) just to cling onto power.I truly hope this cabinet Rutte falls sooner rather than later.Anarchy in the NL!!!!.

yeah that's typical cda, they've always been one of the centerparties in power, and the last years they've become more and more centerright instead of center
they even have a partydoctrine that says to always stay in power, even tough it takes a lot of compromises(I forgit what the exact text was, it was in the newspapers a while ago when there was a lot of internal discussion about the coalition woth support from wilders, usually they keep their internal strugles hidden from the outsode but this was so bad it was even clear for the outside)

but our politics is more a case of best of the worse... currently there's no party that I support 100%, groenlinks used to come pretty close but kind of disapointed in them since their decision to vote in favor of the new mission to afghanistan

Just read todays news and thought this report would be of interest to some of you so here's the short version:

Coffeeshops in Maastricht want to reduce the problems caused by drug-toerisme with 20%

They'll intend do to this by only servicing Dutch, Belgian & German customers as soon as possible, as was prenounced today by Marc Josemans, the president of the VOCM (society of dutch coffeeshops).

According to Josemans this should reduce drug toerisme by a million visitors on a jearly basis. They'll spread out flyers with more info about the subject in the coffeeshops somewhere around September and the same info will also be spread thorughout France, Spain, Italy & Luxembourg at that time.

Local governement has replied that they do not support this plan and prefer to look for a better and nationwide solution. They feel this particular plan is discriminating and don't think it would hold up in court.

I appologize for my rubish translation My spell-checker died on my a couple of days ago so this is the best I can do atm I'm afraid. But I guess you guys are more than welcome in our coffeeshops until September at least & probably quite a bit longer

Modnote: 5 posts merged.

Even if these other places do it, I can never see Amsterdam itself implementing a tourist ban, they'd literally lose millions.
Other countries need to start bringing in similar systems and it would reduce the pressure on the Netherlands - I can certainly sympathise with the people who aren't too happy about thousands of people coming to their country for the purpose of taking drugs. Considering Portugal, and to a much smaller extent, Spain's liberal-ish drug policies they might consider it. Especially with Portugal's economy in the toilet, they could use the money!

Plus why would Germans and Belgians still be allowed in this case? Definite discrimination! Although I admit it can be quite embarrassing witnessing the behaviour of some of my fellow countrymen in other countries.