I will be a bit off-topic since I haven't seen that documentary, but all the discussion about the legal-status of cannabis and the need to do alcohol, drugs etc- discussions are too hard to stay away from.
I wouldn't like to go back to this, but I just think is funny when people say there's nothing to see in Amsterdam except well, coffee shops and a certain light district, I guess if people don't like history, art, just experiencing another culture, of course, please do what you want. But now when it comes to Amsterdam (and dutch towns near borders) all the tourists who came there simply to getting off-the walls (yeah I don't know if anyone uses that term or if it's so "1998 or something :lol
![Smile :) :)](data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7)
stoned (and maybe mix alcohol and magic truffles) are and have sort of bitten the hand that feeds them, as as it was for long discussed, banning the sale of cannabis, hasch for people who don't have a dutch id, is a matter currently being discussed in the city council- or what do you call it? and well, the decision should be ready quite soon (although it's looking quite unlikely that they will stop the sale for foreigners, the fact that it actually got to a debate on a high political level means that things people taken for granted (lol...) could change easily, as with the banning of magic mushrooms etc.
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I have so much to say about this topic, but to put it simple, yes I do think cannabis should be decriminalized and taxed by the state.
If that happened, there's one legislative thing that should be changed or even looked into, which is "driving under the influence of drugs", as opposed to alcohol, cannabis stays in your body so much longer, apparently if you've only smoked it once, you can detect it in your urine for 3-7 days, and for a lot longer if you smoke it regularly. Sure they don't do a piss-test when your driving...but I'm sure the amount somehow relates to what you would get in a breathalyzer test?. Also in a reality/documentary series called Amsterdam nights, a cab driver said while driving "yes I had 5 joints today, but I can drive just fine" which he might do, but I wouldn't really like it if my cab driver (or even worse bus-driver) had done that...
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furie said:
As for alcohol, it's a fact that the countries with the lowest legal age limits and the most socially acceptable drinking lifestyle have the lowest numbers of alcohol health and social issues.
Very true. I also completely agree about the drinking in the middle of the week thing. It's pretty much exactly so in Sweden and ever more in Finland with the drinking culture, I mean "getting really drunk culture" which is so strong that for our -care-taking more or less socialistic form of state, allowing another substance would be such a nightmare to take control of. Also it's quite amusing in Finland, when you've for example read in news, at least a dozen of times, during one year of the police finding home-plantations of cannabis and other related news.. and slowly the general attitudes against cannabis are started to turn, but there's still a long way to go. Yet it was interesting that they decriminalyzed the medical cannabis about one year ago in Finland. Only like 15 people or so have the right to go and buy it for their needs and it's so strongly regulated.
Still, if you go to discussion forums of a newspaper there's still clearly more people who think that cannabis smokers (even if there would be a 1 joint a weekend guy talked about) are extremely lazy, worthless, hippie (yeah that's very bad according to them...) unemployed people. Whereas the complainer guy, could get hammered many days a week and destroy things, get into fights and be scary drunk in front of his kids etc. but no that is still much more socially acceptable :roll:
Joey said:
I suppose you're right, but I think the UK with it's lower drinking age has more of a drink problem than the US. Just from personal observation.
Very sure that's true, I guess that would be an exception and looking at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drinking_age there are quite many countries with the age-limit of 20-21 which have much less drinking related problems (at least that I've heard of) than the UK.
Personally I've only tried pot twice in Finland and then in the Netherlands last summer. It's something I enjoy, but want to keep sort of special to rare occasions, which happens automatically around here, as it's harder to get, well compared to I guess pretty much any country in Europe... also I don't want to pay like around 10£ for a gram of something that usually is bad...