New Amsterdam

Posted on 12/06/2008 at 12:07 pm by Bob Cesca

This HuffPost article is promoting on their front page…

Amsterdam unveiled plans Saturday to close brothels, sex shops and marijuana cafes in its ancient city center as part of a major effort to drive organized crime out of the tourist haven.

I love Amsterdam. I’ve been there nine times, I think. My memory is a little hazy. I’ve taken my wife and kids. The last few times I’ve been there I rented an apartment and a bike and bought groceries and lived for a week or so like a resident. Don’t get me wrong. All the touristy stuff – the coffee shops, sex shows and girls – I did all that, too.

I still think is a good movie on the part of the Dutch. I don’t think this shows of failure of freedom but the failure of walling off all the ‘vice’ businesses in one area. The Red Light District IS a bit scary. I’ve seen thick necked Eastern European dudes slapping a woman around in the alleys there. (I hung out until the police came.) There are little rip-off shops that overcharge stoned tourists for food.

Get out of the RLD in neighborhoods where coffee shops that sell weed are next to sandwich shops that sell Belegde broodjes and it’s a much nicer situation. So the problem isn’t the hookers and stoners, it’s the over-concentration of those things. So next time you hear some smug conservative crow about even Amsterdam is scaling back, tell them to put that in their pipe and smoke it.
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  • emsique

    You can spend all that money to go to Amsterdam, or you can just go to our West Coast. All three states have sensible marijuana laws, and the best weed on the planet. Pick your town, get a vacation rental through VRBO.com, buy your groceries, and settle in. You can score from any number of dirtbags, usually found at coffee shops, skate parks, public parks, etc.Your money helps stimulate local American economies, and there are no East European thugs smacking hookers around. If you desire a legal prostitute, Nevada borders both California and Oregon, but I personally think prostitutes are yuckie.Washington, Oregon, California, your stoner vacation destinations.

  • dswagz

    What a beautiful city!Imagine if we treated adults like adults here and allowed for possession of regulated weed industry. (a drug that has medicinal value as well therapeutic values without the same social horrors side effects as that with alcohol or tobacco).Or if we treated our drug addicts like addicts and developed programs that got them out of the litigation system and kept them from jails and instead put them into programs to enlighten them to their conditions and issues, and educated and trained them to become responsible members of their society…my utopia is showing.

  • NorCalNative

    Lee, thanks for your memories of Holland and the link to HuffPo. I’ve always admired the more tolerant view towards cannabis by the Dutch.Did you know that under Title VII Office of National Drug Control Policy Reauthorization Act of 1998: H11225 under: Responsibilities of the Director (i.e. Drug Czar) 12 A) and 12 B) that the U.S. Drug Czar is legally and Constitutionally required to LIE about any benefits of cannabis and especially to LIE about possible medical use?Congress got tired of not enforcing the existing laws from Nixon in the 70′s so they made it illegal for the Government to TELL THE TRUTH about cannabis.This same contempt of science is carried out through U.S. scientific research. If you’re bored some day, check out the research on cannabis at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the studies the government is doing and allowing. Pretty much all research that gets funded on cannabis is to prove it’s basic “evil-hood.”In addition, any U.S. studies are obligated to use low-grade, i.e. low THC levels, cannabis provided through the DEA. Propaganda and censorship of scientific evidence is the name of the game. Whether or not you like or care about cannabis, those that love the rule-of-law and FREEDOM should care about propaganda and censorship.I once had a medical textbook that spoke of an anecdotal story of a man who consumed several plates full of hashish and died. Other than that, there is NO, ZERO, ZIP, evidence of someone dying from using cannabis. Basically the LD50, the lethal dose is unknown for cannaibis.No other drug or medicine in the WORLD’s pharmalogical armamentarium can make that claim. Prohibition is just a step towards a Police State. As George Carlin used to say….”It’s bullshit and it’s bad for ya!” Prohibition is bullshit!

  • http://www.phasinated.com Aaron

    But will this affect the Bulldog or the Grasshopper?

  • Alan4s

    I think New Orleans should pass laws to allow Amsterdam-style coffee shops. And redesignate a portion of the city as “New Storytown”. If there’s any American city that can compete with Amsterdam for grown-up, civilized decadence, then New Orleans should be the one to do so.I love New Orleans as a vacation destination, exactly because of it’s combination of history, sophistication, food, and party atmosphere. Very much like Amsterdam.

  • JackDanieL

    waaaaiiit…..whaaaaat?duuuuude