Amsterdam is Viper Central: Consider the advantages of going Dutch

[marmar]

from the Detroit Metro Times:



By John Sinclair
Published: November 3, 2010


As a prominent European port city, Amsterdam has served as a center for lightweight vice — recreational drug use, prostitution, gambling, public sexual excess — for several centuries.

This sort of activity has been tolerated in Amsterdam since the city's beginnings, exemplified in modern times by fully legalized prostitution and the virtual legalization of small-scale marijuana sales and recreational drug use of all sorts.

But in no way is Amsterdam a wide-open city in any sense of the word. Vice is regarded as simply a part of normal life and, in the Dutch way, sensibly tolerated and regulated to fit proportionately into the everyday life of its 600,000 citizens. Cannabis use has stabilized at something like 20 percent of the populace and presents no sort of threat to the rather staid social order.

Nothing is more boring to Dutch citizens than the topic of marijuana use. There are those who oppose it on the usual religious or cultural grounds, but the sensationalism and public drama of American-style War on Drugs propaganda is nowhere in evidence; the forces of law and order are perfectly happy with the way things work in terms of recreational drug use.

It's important to remember that marijuana is not exactly legal in the Netherlands. Marijuana use and procurement exist in what the Dutch describe as a "gray area" where it's OK to buy some weed and smoke it in the hundreds of licensed "coffee shops" that abound in the Netherlands, with nearly 250 in operation in Amsterdam itself. ...........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://metrotimes.com/culture/amsterdam-is-viper-central-1.1058406

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TKFH_zh4gY0

[Gabi Hayes]

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uyjW8FTGxbI

[Gabi Hayes]

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[Gabi Hayes]

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[Gabi Hayes]

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