Search Results: dutch (74)

Thanksgiving week in Amsterdam for the last 26 years or so has been a haven for cannabis users and those wanting to celebrate marijuana culture thanks to the High Times Cannabis Cup.
But it seems that after more than a quarter-century of generally being hassle-free, the Dutch are cracking down on events and have shut down the main expo for the event and are strictly enforcing five-gram possession laws and a total ban on solvent-based concentrates.

Wikimedia commons/Public domain image.

The mayor of Amsterdam is pushing for laws that would close cannabis-friendly coffee shops within 250 meters of schools, but only for part of the day. After about 6 p.m. as well as all weekend long and on holidays, the shops can open back up to tokers and space-cake eaters alike.
In the states, heads would roll over shops being within 250 feet of a school or even 1,000 feet of a school. Actually, that’s not true. The feds simply send out $.49 letters to everyone within 1,000 feet of schools and shut them down without really lifting a finger.

A coffee shop menu.

After the Netherlands banned public cannabis shops in border towns, southern Netherlands coffee shop owners say their business – both local and foreign – went in the gutter. Despite their anti-cannabis stance, the courts agreed and say the owners are entitled to compensation.
But the move also clarified the laws, upholding the bans and other measures used to prevent tourists from buying drugs in the country.

Nol van Schaik/Facebook

NORML UK and other cannabis activists across Europe are welcoming the announcement that Dutch cities are set to ditch their proposed Wietpas (“WeedPass”) scheme, which would have allowed only Dutch nationals to buy cannabis in the country’s famous coffeeshops. At least 1.5 million of the city’s seven million visitors a year go to a coffeeshop.
The measure proposed by the previous Christian Democrat government would have forced the coffeeshops to become private members’ clubs, limited to only 2,000 members each and open only to Dutch residents, thereby banning sales to foreigners. The scheme had already been introduced in some parts of southern Holland, where critics say it has already lead to increased street dealing.

Marcel Van Hoorn/AFP
A demonstrator in Maastricht holds a giant cardboard joint protesting the new policy requiring Dutch coffee shops to insitute a “weed pass” system banning foreigners, on May 1, 2012.

Tourists smoked spliffs in the streets of cities in the southern Netherlands and defiant coffee shop owners sold joints to visitors in a protest on the selling of marijuana to foreigners which took effect on Tuesday.

Protesters in Maastricht — near the Belgian border — waved banners with marijuana leaves and slogans such as “Dealers Wanted” and “Stop Discrimination for Belgium,” report Svebor Kranjc and Thomas Escritt of Reuters.
A few hundred demonstrators gathered in the main square, with about 50 of them openly smoking joints alongside a six-foot-long fake spliff.

Radio Netherlands Worldwide
The “Wietpas” (Weed Pass) will exclude foreigners from the Dutch coffee shops where cannabis is sold

A Dutch court on Friday upheld a new law banning foreigners from buying marijuana in coffee shops in the Netherlands, possibly ending decades of “weed tourism” for which Amsterdam and other cities have become world-famous.

A Dutch judge in the Hague ruled that the new law is legal. The move to ban foreigners from buying cannabis is being fought in the city of Amsterdam, where the coffee shops are a major tourist draw and where many shops owners have vowed to ignore the law once it comes into effect.
The conservative government of the Netherlands seems hellbent on turning back the clock to a darker time in Dutch history — a time when the cannabis trade was underground and people had to depend on the black market for marijuana. According to expert observers, the ripples could reverberate internationally.

Floris Leeuwenberg
Cannabis coffeeshops are an integral part of Dutch culture, and have been for decades. A Dutch cannabis consumers group, WeSmoke, says the shops are worthy of preservation as UNESCO World Heritage Sites.

The Netherlands, for reasons known only to the conservative government, seems intent on barring foreigners from its world-famous “coffeeshops” where cannabis is sold. That’s wholly nonsensical, since the shops are a major source of tourist dollars for Amsterdam and most of the other cities where they operate.
But curtailment of the shops — or even complete closure, which could be one of the repercussions of the new rules — would be more than an economic loss to the Netherlands, according to one Dutch pro-cannabis group. It would be a tragic loss of cultural heritage, as well.
Because of that, the Dutch cannabis consumer association WeSmoke has asked that the coffeeshops of the Netherlands be included on UNESCO World Heritage Site list, giving them protection as the unique cultural icons they are.
“World Heritage Sites are commonly understood to be culturally and/or natural important heritage that can be considered irreplaceable, unique and property of the entire world,” said Dimitri Breeuwer of WeSmoke. “This is why we can only conclude the unique Dutch coffeeshop, the very center of the cannabis legalization policies belongs on the UNESCO World Heritage Site list.”

Kush And Orange Juice
Yeah, it’s nice being able to buy connoisseur-grade cannabis and smoke it on the premises in Dutch coffee shops. But the conservative government is trying to ban foreigners from the shops with the unpopular Weed Pass.

Cities Allowed To Decide For Themselves On Enforcement

The Dutch “Weed Pass,” which in effect would have banned foreigners from the famed “coffee shops” which sell cannabis in the Netherlands, took a big hit Tuesday as the Ministry of Security and Justice announced that cities may decide what action — if any — they take against shops which defy the ban.
“Municipalities may decide themselves what sort of action they take against coffeeshops which choose not to comply with the weedpass,” the Ministry announced.

RCMP
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police used satellites to gather intelligence about this marijuana grow operation hidden deep in the heart of Mount Seymour, on Vancouver’s North Shore. Dutch police say they’ll begin using satellite images to find cannabis crops early next year.

​With the coming to power of a right-wing government, the Netherlands is less and less cool about cannabis. Dutch police and local governments in the southern Netherlands plan to work with the European Space Agency to find illegal marijuana plots hidden in fields of corn and asparagus by using satellite data.

The experiment will begin early in 2012, using images taken from orbit to identity cannabis plants, according to Max Timp, a spokesman for the municipality of Venlo, which is leading the misguided project, reports Rudy Ruitenberg at Bloomberg.
While growing marijuana is illegal in the Netherlands, authorities “tolerate” up to five cannabis plants for personal use. The country’s southernmost province, Limburg, has set up a program called “Green Gold” to stamp out the illegal rural growing of marijuana, this year removing 4,140 plants with a claimed street value of three million euros ($4 million).

Radio Netherlands Worldwide

​Foreign visitors will be banned from the “coffee shops” which sell cannabis in southern Netherlands starting January 1, supposedly to combat “anti-social behavior” among tourists. (So when do the tourists get banned from bars?) The ban won’t hit Amsterdam, however, until a year later, in 2013.

The Dutch Justice Ministry announced the ban was going forward after a consultation period, despite opposition from some MPs who called the move “tourism suicide, reports Travelmail Reporter at the Daily Mail.
Licensed coffee shops will be considered private clubs under the new rules. Their maximum of 2,000 members will be limited to Dutch residents 18 and older who carry a so-called “dope card.”
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