Netherlands: Pot shops to be off limits to foreign tourists

[Newsjock]

Source: Los Angeles Times

The Netherlands plans to ban foreign visitors from pot shops in a move that opponents have labeled "tourism suicide."

The Dutch government is trying to stop drug tourism in the country, according to a recent announcement. Under the plan, the "coffee shops" that sell marijuana will become private clubs limited to adult Dutch citizens who have to show proof of ID and become a member to buy marijuana.

Read more: http://www.latimes.com/travel/deals/la-trb-dutch-coffeeshops-drugs-20110601,0,588802.story

[laconicsax]

1. "Papers, please." n/t

[ooglymoogly]

3. Shouldn't that read zig zags please. nt

[Initech]

2. Yup - tourism suicide.

Wait'll they lose a couple billion, then they'll quickly reopen them. :smoke:

[Poll_Blind]

4. My wife and I were at the couples donkey sex workshop in the Red Light district and I recall that..

...she commented that the pot shops were just bringing the whole city down, culturally. At least I think she did, between the braying and the ball-gag, I had to piece a lot of it together myself.

PB

[callous taoboy]

15. Excellent point.

[w4rma]

17. lol. nt

[TaupeDem]

31. What's a couples donkey sex workshop? NT

[Poll_Blind]

42. It's as fun as a trip to Pottery Barn but without the Pottery and twice the Barn.n/t

PB

[Canuckistanian]

41. LOL

:thumbsup:

[ChrisBorg]

5. This is one of the few drug legalizations I was behind.

It is a different country (their problems), it required a desire and extensive travel (non-disposed excluded) and it was market value (no potential for large scale trafficking). If the nouveau riche or Euro train backpackers want to stop in the Netherlands to blow a bowl...so be it.

I don't understand this. I have heard and know of many tourists of all social and economic strata that have made a detour to smoke that one joint and brag. It's like senior cut day at a Catholic school, no harm no foul. This isn't heroin.

This must be a political thing. They mention the college student but they ignore the professors and middle aged couples.

They should look at Jamaica.

[iamthebandfanman]

7. jamaica? why?

btw, you can smoke a doobie in canada if you find the right shop ;)

[ChrisBorg]

11. spleefs..did I spell that right? Spell check is letting me down.

I have 1st hand experience that resorts have people that allow you to buy and then sell back the remains. All within the gated resort.

[Kolesar]

16. More prevalent on the West Coast

Or so I have heard.

[maxsolomon]

39. The Nouveau Riche?

You don't go there to smoke out and "brag", you go there to experience what freedom tastes like.

[dogfacedboy]

6. Those "coffee shops" are the only reason I ever wanted to go there. Oh, well--ain't gonna happen...

[jberryhill]

8. That's a bad move

Since then you'll have Dutch citizens doing street sales to the tourists, and where you have tourists, cash, and criminals, bad things happen.

That's why the red light district was put in hundreds of years ago in the first place.

[iamthebandfanman]

9. exactly, they are just increasing their crime rate..

its still going to happen, just now it wont be in the open.

theyll regret it

[Iliyah]

10. LOL

they don't want to share. I know people from Cali would smoke them out of business, hehehehehe

Papers please and IDs too.

[Vinee]

12. But can we still legally have sex with genuine sex slaves?

[Downtown Hound]

13. Well, I can scratch Amsterdam off my list of places I want to visit

Oh well, don't need 'em anyways. I live in Northern California and went to Humboldt State.

[bigworld]

45. Amsterdam is a lovely city but it's going to be a lot emptier now.

[comtec]

14. It's the conservatives there... The CDA who are behind this

God I hate balkinende and the lot!
Long short their conservatives (and believe me they make our guys look like rank amateurs at times) are grade A Calvinistic bible thumping assholes!

The problem is that the liberals have gotten disorganized and weak
The d66 dem party and the sp socialist party (which I votes for locally yay me) are confused
The DISadvantqge to having too many parties is that liberals fight far more than conservatives
Thus cOnseevative parties (each bat Whittier than the next - wilders anyone?) join forces to keep the lobs out of power

Basically balkys CDA ("christian" democratic party) has been chipping away at pot laws for years
He started by outlawing it on the border towns

The thinking in the swamp (us allochtonen's pet word) is that people do NOT come to holland for the (lack of) culture or museums
Not in the droves that go there now

Already the red light reduction by two thirds has brutalised the tourist industry
Regional governments (gemmente) are restricting permits to run whore houses

Leaving the ethics od prostitution aside for a moment it's KILLING the Dutch governments tax revenue from tourism

Complain all you want about thr illegal prostitution problem (it is legit) but goto Albania or Russia and you'll see grls that are brutally terrorized legally
Whatever else the Dutch work laws demand the red light girls a certain ammount of freedom that can't be taken away

Of course the major problem aren't the girls behind the glass so much as the ones underground (which has only grown since the great whore purge of 2005)

We have to choose our evils to fight

Which do you choose?

[Le Taz Hot]

18. And California thanks them

for the increase in tourism. :evilgrin:

[harun]

25. Yup, California is OPEN FOR BUSINESS.

[LetTimmySmoke]

That's what I was thinking.

Amsterdam - Meet San Francisco: your replacement!

[Scuba]

19. Legislating morality has always worked in the past.

sarcasm thingy

[sofa king]

20. Breaking: Van Gogh Museum "would have been cooler if I was high."

[FLPanhandle]

21. In a poor economy they want to reduce their tourism and revenues?

I didn't know the Dutch had Republicans too.

[WatsonT]

22. Dumb dumb dumb

Good luck with losing that entire sector of your economy.

Like if hooters decided to have conservatively dressed average women instead.

[Loge23]

23. There goes the baby with the bath water

It sounds like a massive over-reaction to a relatively minor problem of access.
We were in Amsterdam a couple of years ago. At the popular Bulldog Cafe, at least half of the clientele were foreigners - probably more. In fact, no one else that we spoke with - or relaxed outside on the square with - were native Dutch.
This will substantially reduce the coffeeshop industry in the Netherlands. As other posters have succinctly observed, it's OK to have sex with slaves in Amsterdam - or drink oneself into a heaving glob - but God forbid we smoke pot! Ridiculous.
Whole freakin' world is going to the fuckin' Puritans.

[AndyTiedye]

30. This Will Substantially Reduce Pretty Much Every Kind of Economic Activity in Amsterdam

I don't think they have any idea how much this is going to cost them.
Do they think all the foreigners just buy their pot and return to where they came from?
Not very likely. They are probably staying in a hotel somewhere.
They gotta eat. If they have been visiting the coffee shops, they will certainly eat MORE.
Many of them also visit the museums, buy stuff in the stores, go on the canal tours, etc.

Is there any chance of a "no confidence" vote to run these idiots out of office before they wreck the Dutch economy?

[stubtoe]

49. Stroopwaffle consumption will take a big hit.

Munchies, you know...

[JAnthony]

24. I went to one once when I was in Amsterdam for 5 days...lots of other

things to see and do in that nice city. Ann Frank house, Van Gough museum, other museums canal tours, interesting food.

Don't cross it off your list just for THAT reason.

[Downtown Hound]

32. Actually, I'll cross it off my list

hope that their tourism industry takes a dive, and hope that they recant this stupid and backwards policy when they watch their bank accounts dwindle.

[DeadEyeDyck]

44. the only reason you went there was to get high? LOL

[Downtown Hound]

47. I've never been

But yes, that actually was the only reason I wanted to go. So there. LOL.

[shanti]

34. nah

i'll pass too. europe is a big continent. if i want to see museums and eat interesting food, i'll go to italy, AND the weather is better there too!

[martymar64]

52. Same with Spain . . .I heard the weed there is superb too!

[Ian David]

26. Now the government should start selling "temporary citizenship" by the hour. n/t

[GodlessBiker]

27. What's the Dutch word for "insanity"?

[Bragi]

28. I hope wooden-clog tourism takes up the slack /nt

[Uncle Joe]

29. Well that's a bummer, I was planning on going there one day just

to check out their coffee shops.

Museums are great, but you can them in most any developed nation.

Those coffee shops were a unique part of the Dutch flavor, mystique and allure, sort of like New Orleans for Mardi Gras or Rio during Carnival, only the Dutch had it all year long.

Thanks for the thread, Newsjock.

[JNelson6563]

33. Breaking: Tourism plummets in Netherlands

[MrScorpio]

35. If I smoked dope, then I would rely on my Dutch in laws

It's good to have Dutch in laws

[JAnthony]

36. I smoked more pot in Southern France than in the few days I spent

in the Netherlands' best known city.

Really! If you just want to smoke pot, there's thousands of local growers in S. France these days, they grow indoors, outdoors, on rooftops, in gardens, and the police simply don't care if it's just a family pot patch.

If you are in Nice, Marseilles, San Tropez, (expensive there), or some of the other coastal areas, you can find it, on the street, and at about 1/3rd the price in the USA.

[and-justice-for-all]

38. That would be the difference,,,,

When I goto a coffeeshop in Amsterdam, I do not feel the same as I would if I bought it off the street.

[shanti]

55. that's good to know

:smoke:

[and-justice-for-all]

37. Utter bullshit...

This will cause the crime rate in Amsterdam to sky rocket.

[wordpix]

40. +1 and US has more than double the number of cannabis users than the Netherlands has

http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/lif_can_use-lifestyle-cannabis-use

Showing latest available data.
Rank Countries Amount
# 1 New Zealand: 22.23%
# 2 Australia: 17.93%
# 3 United States: 12.3%
# 4 United Kingdom: 9%
# 5 Switzerland: 8.5%
# 6 Ireland: 7.91%
# 7 Spain: 7.58%
# 8 Canada: 7.41%
# 9 Netherlands: 5.24%
# 10 Belgium: 5.01%
# 11 France: 4.7%
# 12 Italy: 4.6%
# 13 Greece: 4.39%
# 14 Germany: 4.1%
# 15 Denmark: 4.02%
# 16 Norway: 3.82%
# 17 Portugal: 3.68%
# 18 Czech Republic: 3.58%
# 19 Poland: 3.38%
# 20 Austria: 3.01%
# 21 Finland: 2.49%
# 22 Luxembourg: 1.94%
# 23 Hungary: 1.19%
# 24 Mexico: 1.13%
# 25 Sweden: 0.98%
# 26 Japan: 0.05%

[BigAnth]

48. I'm intrigued by the fact that there are so many English-speaking countries at the top of this list.

The top 4 countries are English speaking with two more English-speaking countries in the top ten. I never really thought of smoking pot as an anglo type of thing, but this seems to show otherwise. Also, I never realized that there were so many smokers down under.

[martymar64]

53. When I travelled to Oz, I tried some New Guinea ganja

It was sublime.

[pitohui]

43. the coffee shops are irrelevant to the tourists, actually

i'll be the only uncool kid to admit it, but AMS is a major hub and like almost everyone else i go there and i DON'T use drugs

i'm guessing a very tiny percent of visitors actually visit the coffee shops or smoke the forbidden weed

the rest of us have places to go, people to meet, and things to do

restricting the shops to residents is their decision, and i don't blame them for not wanting the "drug tourist" ... i'm guessing fewer tourists partake than BRAG about partaking anyway

one of my buddies puts on his cap that he bought in amsterdam and is instantly "cool," never mind that the strongest drug he took in amsterdam was beer...there's a lot of poseurs out there but i don't think they'll lose any real number of tourists over this...the true pot smoker doesn't leave his own house much in my experience

[bigworld]

46. No but therer a lot of normally straight kids who will choose Amsterdam

over other European cities just so they can partake once or twice.

[Rowdyboy]

50. Very sad news indeed....

[BadGimp]

51. how sad

everything that should be legal in The Netherlands, IS legal. What a wonderfully humane place. I so enjoyed my last visit. I don't remember much but I am certain it was great jk :).

[Redford]

54. Great memories of the Bulldog cafe

We had a blast. This is really sad but hopefully they will realize the mistake and reopen for everyone.