Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

How smoking weed is still legal for tourists in Amsterdam

travel.stackexchange.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 72 posts

Re: How smoking weed is still legal for tourists in Amsterdam

#51

Post by malka »

chimeracoder wrote: post #44

Good explanation, but this title is incredibly misleading. Marijuana was never legal in the Netherlands[0], for tourists or residents. As the linked answer itself points out, it was only tolerated. Until November 2012, there was no place in the world where marijuana was truly legal, except (possibly) North Korea[1]. Even still, it's a stretch to say that marijuana is legal in Washington State and Colorado, since the…

US strategy : -Make weed illegal in the entire world -Legalize weed -??? -Profit !

Re: How smoking weed is still legal for tourists in Amsterdam

#52

Post by drone »

aestra wrote: post #46
Cthulhu_ wrote: post #8

There's a lot of laws like this that don't get enforced as much as 'law' would imply. Another example is the ban on smoking in workplaces to protect the employees; in the Netherlands, a couple of years ago, this law was implemented, meaning that smoking was effectively banned from bars and pubs as well. Outrage ensued from all sides. Two 'workarounds' were created: * People just donate to the pub owner to pay the fin…

Interesting. I remember a while ago there was suddenly many States in the US to enact smoking bans in bars/restaurants mostly one right after another. I remember when I was in high school they passed the law in my State and they had some people interviewed on the news about it. However, while I heard about "smokeasys" existing (term comes from prohibition era speakeasys) I have never seen one and I've been to a lot o…

> However hookah bars are allowed to exist almost everywhere as far as I can tell, and I really never understood how that fits into the law.

In my city, they have a simple rule that decides whether or not smoking indoors can happen: whether or not a majority percentage of retail revenue comes from the sale of tobacco products. So, things like cigar, pipe, and hookah shops can allow indoor smoking, but virtually no bar in the city can. (Who, by law, must put a sign up indicating a majority of sales come from the sale of alcohol for consumption on-premise. You can't have both a majority of sales from alcohol and from tobacco at the same time, so cigar bars all had to create patios.)

These laws are not loosely enforced in the city, to the extent that there is a team of bureaucrats tasked with enforcing action in regards to complaints. However, whether or not every customer reports infractions, is a different story. =)

Re: How smoking weed is still legal for tourists in Amsterdam

#53

Post by [deleted] »

shawnz wrote: post #27
70forty wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And I stand by what I said. It's tough to find statistics but the article below says that between 1993 and 2006, 23 deaths were tied to ketamine use. That to me qualifies as safe and relatively non-addictive in the context of recreational drug use. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/ketamine-tops... Oh yeah, and banning discussion of recreational drug use will do wonders for harm reduction, lol.

I don't see where you are getting "relatively non-addictive" from. I have had many positive experiences with Ketamine, but I will be the first to say that it takes a lot of self-control to not overdo it. EDIT: To be clear, I am aware ketamine is not physically addictive. However I find it to be one of the most psychologically addictive drugs I have taken.

[deleted]

Re: How smoking weed is still legal for tourists in Amsterdam

#54

Post by diydsp »

nicholassmith wrote: post #7
013 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Lately there's a new thing, it's actually for horses needing surgery and keeps them on their feet. Kids use it to prefent passing out from all the other drugs. Funny thing is: They look like walking zombies stumbling about. Ketamine. [0] [0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ketamine

Doesn't sound like ketamine completely. Whilst it'll zombify you pretty quickly, it won't prevent you from passing out from other drugs as you can 'k-hole' on it pretty quickly and pass out. Butorphanol is what seems more likely from a bit of internet sleuthing (but I imagine it'll have a more jazzy name in the club).

http://www.erowid.org/experiences/subs/exp_Pharms_Butorphano...

Interesting. It's not available from the front page of erowid, so it must be somewhat new. It doesn't appear to have an interesting street name from this handful of reports. At least its prescription, so it's not some god-awful thing, but it is an opiate, so somewhat dangerous.

Re: How smoking weed is still legal for tourists in Amsterdam

#55

Post by patrickk »

malka wrote: post #50
bowlofpetunias wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have become very anti-EU in recent years. I am very much pro open borders with neighboring nations, but the EU has become a vehicle for creating a fundamentally undemocratic centralized federal state. And I especially detest the way the EU tries to shift the balance of power by allowing impoverished, corrupt nations into the EU without any kind of democratic process. In the Netherlands, there is a clear majority ag…

ah ah, in France, we kinda had the same problem with the eu 'constitution'. the referendum result was 'no'. So, the name was changed, and it was voted by the parliament. Democracy at its finest. never bothered to vote since.

The Irish people rejected the EU Constitution(Lisbon Treaty) in a referendum as well[1]. The Irish government laughed at the people, deployed a bunch of scare-mongering tactics in the media, and held another vote to get the "right" result. Democracy in action. I get the feeling that a lot of EU treaties would be rejected by many countries if put to popular referendums.

After seeing the way in which Germany bullied Ireland into keeping the insane bank bailout which has crippled Ireland's sovereign balance sheet, I've become doubtful about some elements of EU membership.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ratification_of_the_Treaty_of_L...

Re: How smoking weed is still legal for tourists in Amsterdam

#56

Post by pstuart »

malka wrote: post #50
bowlofpetunias wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have become very anti-EU in recent years. I am very much pro open borders with neighboring nations, but the EU has become a vehicle for creating a fundamentally undemocratic centralized federal state. And I especially detest the way the EU tries to shift the balance of power by allowing impoverished, corrupt nations into the EU without any kind of democratic process. In the Netherlands, there is a clear majority ag…

ah ah, in France, we kinda had the same problem with the eu 'constitution'. the referendum result was 'no'. So, the name was changed, and it was voted by the parliament. Democracy at its finest. never bothered to vote since.

It's important to vote if only to make a statement that you care about the issue. Your silence is a vote of approval for the politicians to do whatever they want (of course they pretty much do already, but one should never implicitly vote for that).

Re: How smoking weed is still legal for tourists in Amsterdam

#57

Post by walshemj »

netcan wrote: post #38
bowlofpetunias wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have become very anti-EU in recent years. I am very much pro open borders with neighboring nations, but the EU has become a vehicle for creating a fundamentally undemocratic centralized federal state. And I especially detest the way the EU tries to shift the balance of power by allowing impoverished, corrupt nations into the EU without any kind of democratic process. In the Netherlands, there is a clear majority ag…

That's unfortunate and possibly the downfall of many good things. Much of the objection to the EU has come form nationalists around Europe. We have many. The worst case scenario is when/if European politics gets dichotomized into Eurocrat vs Nationalist. Instead i would like to see the EU go back to basics. I don't think it's too late. A reaffirmation of basic principles. Free movement. Free trade. The core tenants o…

unfortunetly some EU countrys "no names no pack drill" take the farm subsidy but when it comes to establishing basic common rights basically stick two fingers up to the EU.

Re: How smoking weed is still legal for tourists in Amsterdam

#58

Post by walshemj »

StudyAnimal wrote: post #14

What is the current situation in towns like Maastricht and Heerlen that decided to implement the residents only restriction? Was that rolled back or not?

But its basically illegal under EU law - you cant restrict trade on the basis of which EU country you come from.

Re: How smoking weed is still legal for tourists in Amsterdam

#59

Post by deathhand »

bowlofpetunias wrote: post #32
netcan wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am very pro EU. The original purpose was to avoid wars, long teem. That goal is still relevant. Free trade and free movement were both considered tools. I consider them (especially the often neglected free movement) ends themselves. That said, the EU has issues. Lots of political traditions and very few basic principles to guide how things should be done. What EU is and isn't responsible for isn't clear. There has…

I have become very anti-EU in recent years. I am very much pro open borders with neighboring nations, but the EU has become a vehicle for creating a fundamentally undemocratic centralized federal state. And I especially detest the way the EU tries to shift the balance of power by allowing impoverished, corrupt nations into the EU without any kind of democratic process. In the Netherlands, there is a clear majority ag…

The roots of the EU come from the steel industry. Capitalism runs the world thus rules the people. To think that any government actually subscribes to any idea of universal betterment of humanity that doesn't fulfill the coffers is naive.

Re: How smoking weed is still legal for tourists in Amsterdam

#60

Post by bane »

bowlofpetunias wrote: post #32
netcan wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am very pro EU. The original purpose was to avoid wars, long teem. That goal is still relevant. Free trade and free movement were both considered tools. I consider them (especially the often neglected free movement) ends themselves. That said, the EU has issues. Lots of political traditions and very few basic principles to guide how things should be done. What EU is and isn't responsible for isn't clear. There has…

I have become very anti-EU in recent years. I am very much pro open borders with neighboring nations, but the EU has become a vehicle for creating a fundamentally undemocratic centralized federal state. And I especially detest the way the EU tries to shift the balance of power by allowing impoverished, corrupt nations into the EU without any kind of democratic process. In the Netherlands, there is a clear majority ag…

You know, as an American, it's interesting to see how the EU experiment plays out. Many of these issues have parallels to the American federal vs. state's rights debates. Early on, the U.S. was much more individual state-centric. Outside of slavery, the American civil war was largely about individual Southern states keeping their local rights vs. a more federal North. Over time the major political parties have largely separated on this issue with the American Left more federal and the Right more interested in state rights.

Lots of the befuddlement non-Americans feel towards sometimes arcane, mixed "American" policy (e.g. taxes, guns, gay rights, etc.) is a result of this.

Regardless, the US model has quickly moved towards a more national policy even though it's still a very active debate here.

The EU is a grand experiment, but long histories and complex cultural differences and interactions will make it very interesting to watch how it plays out.

Post reply on HN