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THE DUTCH GOVERNMENT has announced it will impose restrictions on the sale of powerful cannabis in the country’s famous coffee shops, saying the drug has grown far stronger over the last few years.
Under the new plans, cannabis with a high level of the active ingredient THC will be reclassified in the same category as ‘hard’ drugs such as heroin and cocaine.
Coffee shops will no longer be able to sell anything higher than 15 per cent THC – a serious blow, as this includes around 80 per cent of the varieties currently on sale, according to the BBC.
The new restrictions come on the heels of recent moves to restrict access to coffee shops, with tourists banned from the stores in Maastricht in a move due to be rolled out across the country next year.
One coffee shop owner told Reuters that the move would increase his sales, but ultimately be bad for smokers. Marc Josemans said: “All this will do is lead to people smoking more joints and me selling more grams. But as it’s used with tobacco it will damage their health more.”
Could Ireland make some money filling this demand by legalising it & getting drug tourists’ cash into the economy ?
Yes let’s turn the country Into kip just for a few euro
No!!! We don’t want drug-sex tourists!!! They can go to amsterdam or thailand.
Ye God damn those backward cities. You been to either? Great ‘craic’.
"… anything higher than 15 percent THC – a serious blow…" Nice choice of words.
There are a lot of people in here that haven’t got a clue what they are talking about! Let’s ban booze, an actual lethal drug that can kill you. There are no recorded deaths from weed, none. How many from alcohol?? The medical applications of THC make it a life saver not a killer. As for the moron with the gateway comment, Been smoking 15 years with no ill effects whatsoever. I don’t smoke cigarettes and I don’t do other drugs, don’t smoke at work. If someone wants to do lots of drugs and has no self control they are going to end up in the shitz regardless. Drink and cigarettes kill daily, weed never. Deal with it
Second that comment. Well put.
3rd it.
Weed causes interstitial lung fibrosis so good luck when you’re older buddy and can’t climb stairs. Messes your lungs up in the opposite way to tobacco. Cant wait to see you clogging up the clinics!
Funny how when I Google “interstitial lung fibrosis” weed is not in the list of causes…
Long-term exposure to a number of toxins and pollutants can damage your lungs.
These may include:
Silica dust
Asbestos fibers
Grain dust
Bird and animal droppings
They must have changed the spelling of weed and you are the only person that got that memo!
Inhaling smoke in general or just having a vice is not good for you but it beats the tits off booze and cigarettes.
Yeah, prohibition absolutely works. No problems with drugs here at all.
So what if someone is stoned on the same plane as you. I bet he/she is quiet and minding their own business.
I expected a more balanced set of comments here, but everyone’s on the right it seems
What’s the point of this new restriction though? None that I can see.
I was in the dam recently and if they close the smoke shops off to tourists, there is going to be a huge effect on the economy straight away. So many tourists spending money on smoke which is taxed, hotels/hostels, and the obligatory munchies sold by shops all over the place.
What you will get are real tourists….who have been put off by the sleeze tourists that go there.. Maybe if amsterdam did not have sex/drugs more people would go. I have to fly to amsterdam for work.. And the amount of guys on the flights who go over for "stags" is a real put off for me to bring my family… What is worse are the return stoned/drunk passengers.
Ye I’m sure your family will replace the 1000s of so called ‘drug’ tourists that won’t go any more.
I think you’re dim if your think the city won’t suffer financially from these decisions. Not that they are all bad.
Well neitherlands are rolling back the whole sex business because its run by foreign prostitutes.. Also the drug tourists only spend on 2 things… So I give it 10 years before cannabis will be ilegal.. dutch are fed up.
Alex, prostitutes get there license to trade from the dutch government, not from foreign prostitutes. And to say drug tourists only spend on two thing is stupidity beyond belief. All drug tourists spend on some or all of the following: accommodation, transport, food, drink, there’s four for a start. And I’m pretty sure many of them spend on souvenirs, nightclubs, museums, art galleries, amusement parks etc. In fact much the same as your average tourist.
@Alex: Real tourists? Considering you visit Amsterdam, I’m sure you know that the coffee shops are largely centered around a single central area in the city; take a 5 minute walk in any direction from this area and you’ll find it quite tough to find any coffee shops.
We could apply your logic to Ireland: maybe we should get rid of all the pubs in Temple Bar, thereby attracting more tourists to the country?
Probably good all right. Although one would like to see solid evidence that it’s causing problems though. People seem to take action against marijuana without any facts I’ve seen. You can see the problems with crack, cocaine and heroin pretty quick. And also the problems with alcohol and tobacco.
Gary, in case you hadn’t noticed much of the country is already a kip. To assert that somehow if we followed the Dutch lead on drug laws it would lead to a dirty country is moot (it’s a fallacy anyway) besides, Amsterdam is a far cleaner city than Dublin. Every morning their streets are hosed down and they have far less litter.. Dirt happens everywhere, but they seem to be more serious about cleaning it up.
The "gateway drug" argument ignores the many users who do not go on to other habits, of which there are many. It infers a connection that is not there, but rather is an individual choice. Its simple confusing cause and effect.
Smoking a bit of weed does not make you stupid, in fact, the scientific studies suggest quite the opposite, and even suggest it may protect against Alzheimer’s, if anything, it tends to encourage "thinking outside the box", something that usually results in higher scores on standard IQ tests.
Not to mention all the other positive uses documented.
Really, as one of the other posters above pointed out, most arguments against cannabis are made contrary to the evidence. They are appeal to; belief, consequence of belief, fear, popularity, ridicule and tradition fallacies. Biased sample, burden of proof and composition fallacies, confusing cause and effect, genetic fallacy, guilt by association, hasty generalisations, questionable cause, misleading vividness, red herrings and spotlight fallacies.
Nothing with that many inherent fallacies for an argument can be considered valid. In order for something to be held as true it requires that logic, common sense and circumstantial evidence coincide.. In the case against legalisation, they do not.
I agree, not all people who smoke a joint use other drugs. Plenty of people on here who only believe in what the media tells you, research your comment before you make your mind up
Giz, nicely put together comment.
Giz no offence but every one study that comes out saying that week/Hash is good for you theres about 5 that’s says it’s bad ….. I smoked hash for years and I can say honestly it did me no good what so ever .. Only after I stopped did I relies what a waster I’d been
@Gary, why did you stop? You should have kept smoking and you’d never have found out you were a waster. Ignorance is bliss…..Man ;)
@ Gary..
Well if you were smoking "hash" then there’s the problem.
The studies were done on cannabis. The dirty soapbar that was circulating in Ireland was very low in cannabis content. As well as having been through a man made process. It was littered with diesel and vinyl and had chunks of plastic in it..
Not good for you, I completely agree. That stuff would rot your brain. If cannabis were legal, people would be able to consume the plant – unchanged, as nature intended so to speak. I only advocate the use of the herb in plant form, drying being the only process added by man.
In the same way I would argue that both heroin and cocaine are MAN MADE. The coca plant is not Cocaine. Poppy seeds aren’t heroin. They are just the main ingredients, but they have been changed.
As for the amount of studies, you obviously have no idea how studies work. If you’re just reading the headlines you are probably being duped. An estimated 99% of what goes in med journals can be proven to be fraudulent (don’t take my word for it, read "classical peer review: an empty gun" by Richard Smith). So you need to be considering myriad elements when reviewing medical research.
The majority of studies on cannabis that stand up to scrutiny are positive. There’s plenty of studies out there to say it’s bad for you, same way there was plenty of studies that said avandia, vioxx and bextra were safe (nevermind the ones the manufacturers swept under the carpet that showed they increased the risk of you dying by up to 40%, which later led to their withdrawal from the market).
Many people are unaware of just how much fraud goes on in medical research, so I am not surprised that you have found these conflicting sources of information. I would just urge you to look deeper and see for yourself. John Ionnadis has done much work on this, and Dave Sackett and Andy Oxmann provided details of the many methods used to manipulate RCTs in the satirical article "harlot plc: an amalgamation of the worlds two oldest professions" in the BMJ.
Sadly, reading medical research these days requires you to research the researchers too in order to ascertain if their motives are pure. Many even disguise their affiliations in order to circumvent the required declaration of conflicts of interest!
Again.. The arguments against do not hold up to scrutiny.. This is all that I am saying.. And as pointed out below, we should, as "free" adults, have the right to choose what we ingest or don’t ingest for ourselves.
I would never touch heroin, I see to many reasons with my own eyes not to. But if someone else wants to it’s their choice, not the states.
If Cannabis were legalised, it would need to be regulated, like alcohol. Adults ONLY. I don’t think it’s beneficial to kids for the same reason alcohol isn’t, their brains are still in formation and should be allowed to develop unhindered by anything (including the IQ lowering waste product which the state forcibly medicate us with via our water supply)
Just returned from Amsterdam yesterday, had an awesome time. A great city, one I can’t wait to visit and explore again with relish. There’s an old saying, ‘You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make it drink’. The choices we make in our lives are ours to make alone.
You can get anything. ANYTHING. Heroin, cocaine, a gun. Doesn’t mean you buy it. Great point made above.
They why sell it…society needs to be responsable…
@Alex
Why NOT sell it? As you say, society needs to take responsibility so let people themselves decide if they want to buy the stuff. Otherwise you encourage a nanny state!
Ban on tourists in Maastricht shows how the locals got a little paranoid from all the smoke.
Ha ha god i have to laugh at some of these comments… I ate a pack of wine gums when i was 14 along with 10 of my mates and now we’re all raging alcoholics who drink whiskey straight because if you enjoy something it always leads onto something stronger!! Keep away from everything so for yr own sake, especially weak coffee or sure as Fuc you’ll end up on the strong stuff, full caffeine!!
Run.. run for the hills i tell ya or ya’ll end up with a needle in yr arm :D Maaaammmmmmmy…
skunk is made from leaves of a sexually frustrated female plant, which i find sort of mean. i know this is funny, cos its just a plant though. :P
About time …
Also good that tourists wont be able to buy cannabis!!! Long overdue.
Cannabis is a gateway drug and should be banned completely!
Weed and hash turns people into dumb-asses full stop
I think you’ll find those people you’re referring to were dumb-asses to begin with, the weed just accentuates the dumb-assness, just like alcohol does.
Biddy = Noddy
Stupid iPhone
People can and have become dependent on hash/weed to say it’s harmless is childish ….
People become addicted, dependant on fags, booze, sex, fatty foods and s whole load of other things which can eventually have a very damaging effect on their health and lifestyles! But none if these things are illegal!
Dependence is a psychological state.
Addiction is a biochemical state.
As pointed out above you can become dependent on chocolate, McDonalds, exercise, people, the Internet… Should we ban all those things too?
On the flipside you can actually become addicted to; cigarettes, alcohol, pain killers and a whole load of other things (and a lot of pharmaceutical drugs – whether they say they’re addictive or not, are.. The withdrawal, sorry "discontinuation syndrome" from anti depressants is just like that scene in trainspotting, shakes, vomiting, diahorrea, cold sweats, and hot chills, hallucinations etc)
There is no evidence for actual addiction to cannabis. There is much evidence of benefit. So why is this humble (although in some belief systems "sacred") herb treated disproportionately?
Could it be that mass cultivation could spell disaster for conventional paper manufacture, the cotton industry (now relying on GM), the GM industry (hemp is very nutritious and could help world hunger – mind you, that’s an engineered problem), the oil industry and many others?
All of these industries are destroying our planet, and still we find it hard to leave them behind.. So this could be a plausible reason. Especially seeing as how it was lobbying from the paper industry that got it banned in the first place..
Well all this is going to do is make people go back to drug dealers what a great idea.
Oh Jesus I laughed out loud
@noddy … Hah
For 10,000 years cannabis has been a part of human culture, religion and medicine. The hemp plant was used to make everything from paper to walls. The only reason that it is illegal in most of the world is because Harry Anslinger and his people would no longer have a job after alcohol prohibition had ended. (The dawn of the DEA). He made up a load of lies, such as that it will kill you, make you kill others, go insane etc. and force fed these untruths to the people in his papers to keep his business afloat. (Anslinger was also a raging racist, and cannabis was a huge part of African American culture) This is really brief and scattered information, but if you look deep enough yourself, like Jack Herrer did, you’ll see that it’s all just a big bag of lies, when we should all be allowed a big bag of green. How can NATURE be illegal? That’s just pure nonsense.
I mean really? NATURE? ILLEGAL?
WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH THE WORLD!!!?
Also, by it’s legalisation;
- people can grow their own medicine/sacrament/fun
- the little of the worlds remaining trees will have time to replenish and heal the world
- motor vehicles can use hemp oil (zero carbon footprint)
- fewer drug crimes/murders
- people who were locked up for possession of a little piece of NATURE will get to go home to their families and friends, away from real criminals
This list of benefits is much longer than what I’ve said, but I think those above are fairly important.
I won’t talk about the restrictions that need to be imposed if legalised because they’re essentially common sense, like don’t let your children at the medicine cabinet.
As for it being a gateway drug, that’s just plain bullshit. If you take other drugs that’s your own choice, foolish as you are for it, it’s not the fault of one’s cannabis consumption.
I smoke marijuana regularly, and intend on doing so for the rest of my life, because I believe it is my right as a human being. By believing that it should be illegal you are just wrong, simple as.
(Also a fact, the large majority of people FOR prohibition, have absolutely no idea what they are talking about, and the people who say they know what they’re talking about, really haven’t a clue and are just sheeps, dogs, and pigs kept under the thumb of modern society. Free your minds and disobey once in a while for your own sakes.)
Prohibition does not work, never has, and never will.
Down with that sort of thing ………
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