"Stoner voters targeted in Dutch election campaign" by Mike Corder | Associated Press, September 05, 2012
THE HAGUE — With slogans like ‘‘Don’t let your vote go up in smoke,’’ owners of the free-wheeling cafes where bags of hashish are sold alongside cups of coffee are mounting a get-out-the-stoner-vote campaign ahead of next week’s Dutch election.
The campaigners are calling on their sometimes apathetic clientele to get out and support political parties that oppose the recently introduced ‘‘weed pass’’ that is intended to rein in the cafes known as coffee shops and close them altogether to foreign tourists.
At a coffee shop in The Hague, a member of the staff selling weed wears a T-shirt emblazoned with a modified Uncle Sam style poster calling on smokers to ‘‘Vote against the weed pass on Sept. 12.’’ Under the new system, coffee shops become member-only clubs and only Dutch residents can apply for a pass to get in. The cafes are limited to a maximum of 2,000 members.
The online vote2smoke.nl campaign offers cannabis and marijuana users voting advice by showing which political parties support dumping the ‘‘weed pass,’’ which came into force in the southern Netherlands this year and is intended to spread over the whole country in coming years.
Joep Oomen of the legalize cannabis movement said it is hard to know how big the pot-smoking constituency is, but he estimates it at around a half-million people in this nation of 16 million.
Basically the advice to them boils down to this: Voting for any political party on the left is good, and any party on the right is bad.
One champion of the smokers’ lobby is Socialist Party leader Emile Roemer, a jovial 50-year-old former teacher whose party is expected to make significant gains at the Sept. 12 election.
Speaking at a campaign event last weekend, Roemer called the weed pass ‘‘incredibly stupid’’ and vowed to scrap it if he wins power.
He said the pass system simply pushes drug dealers onto the streets and out of the controlled environment of the coffee shops....
The center-left Labor Party, which is surging in preelection polls thanks to strong performances by its leader Diederik Samsom in televised debates, also advocates scrapping the pass and replacing it with legislation that would further enshrine tolerance of marijuana in Dutch law and regulate not only coffee shops but also growers.
However, the coffee shops still have a fight on their hands — the conservative VVD party of outgoing prime minister Mark Rutte is topping polls and looks set to become the biggest single party. It was a VVD-led coalition that introduced the weed pass and it is standing by the policy.
If Rutte winds up negotiating a centrist coalition, all parties would likely be willing to bend or drop their position on the pass in favor of other policy goals.
Coffee shops have long been tolerated in the Netherlands because authorities believe they keep dope smokers away from street dealers of more dangerous and outlawed drugs like cocaine and heroin.
The cafes have become tourist magnets in Amsterdam, but Rutte’s government clamped down on them because they are blamed for crime, traffic, and parking problems in towns and cities close to the Dutch borders with Germany and Belgium.
In those places, authorities say, many of the clients are foreign drug runners who drive in from neighboring countries to stock up on marijuana.
The VVD’s election manifesto underscores the party’s support for the weed pass, and other right-leaning parties who back the crackdown on cannabis....
Much of smokers’ anger is directed at the policy of having to supply personal details to get a weed pass....
It dissipates pretty quick after a couple of hits.
--more--"
Related:
Sunday Globe Special: Dutch After Dinner Smoke
Dutch Retreat
PARIS — Amsterdam’s 220 coffee shops, where marijuana and hashish are openly sold and consumed, will remain open next year in spite of a new Dutch law meant to reduce drug tourism, the city’s mayor said in an interview published Thursday.
The mayor, Eberhard van der Laan, told the Dutch newspaper De Volkskrant that he had made the decision after considering the unintended consequences of a ban, including revival of black market trade. He noted the current system allowed for the government to monitor the quality of ‘‘soft’’ drugs and to limit access to the coffee shops to those 18 and older, which would be impossible if the trade were again to become clandestine....
Michael Veling, spokesman for the Dutch Cannabis Retailers Association, said the incoming Cabinet of Prime Minister Mark Rutte had already begun backing away from the government’s stance, saying now that the ban on foreigners buying cannabis would remain but that local councils could have the last word.
--more--"
"Dutch back off marijuana restriction" by Mike Corder | Associated Press, November 21, 2012
THE HAGUE — Marijuana-selling coffee shops in Amsterdam will not be shutting their doors to foreign visitors any time soon, a huge relief to the hundreds of thousands of tourists who enjoy a toke or two in the Dutch capital alongside their excursions on the canals and to the museums.
Amsterdam welcomed Tuesday’s changes in the national government’s drug policies as a green light to let tourists keep using the city’s 220 cafes that sell cannabis, marijuana, and prerolled joints alongside cups of coffee.
On Monday night, Justice Minister Ivo Opstelten sent a letter to Parliament announcing he was scrapping a nationwide rollout of the so-called ‘‘weed pass’’ that was designed to keep non-Dutch residents out of coffee shops....
--more--"
More treats the Globe gave me:
"The nation’s highest court approved Michelle Martin’s release after serving 16 years of a 30-year prison term for her role in the mid-1990s kidnappings, rapes, and killings by her then-husband, Marc Dutroux."
Related: Dutroux Sex Ring
You would be surprised at the names involved.
UPDATE: Possible Human Trafficking Investigated at Saudi Diplomatic Compound Between CIA and Prince Bandar in Virginia
And yet marijuana is the issue?
"Dutch Queen Beatrix to abdicate" Associated Press, January 29, 2013
THE HAGUE — Dutch Queen Beatrix said Monday that she will abdicate on April 30 after 33 years as head of state, clearing the way for her eldest son, Crown Prince Willem-Alexander, 45, to become the nation’s first king in more than a century.
The announcement, in a nationally televised speech, signaled an end to the reign of one of Europe’s longest-serving monarchs, whose time on the throne was marked by tumultuous shifts in Dutch society and, more recently, by personal tragedy.
The queen’s abdication from the largely ceremonial role had been expected, but it is sure to bring an outpouring of sentimental and patriotic feelings among the Dutch, most of whom adore Beatrix....
Observers believe she remained on the throne for so long in part because of unrest in Dutch society as the country struggled to assimilate more immigrants, mainly Muslims from North Africa....
--more--"
Other Dutch whores:
"Amsterdam to raise legal age for prostitutes" by Toby Sterling | Associated Press, February 27, 2013
AMSTERDAM — The city plans to raise the minimum age for prostitutes from 18 to 21 and force brothels to close during early morning hours.
At a press conference Tuesday, Mayor Eberhard van der Laan said the moves came from a decision to crack down on crime in the city’s famed Red Light District and protect sex workers — mostly women — from abuse.
Amsterdam is home to about 8,000 professional sex workers, the city estimates, half of them who operate behind windows with red velvet curtains and red lights. Van der Laan said under the new regime, all windows would be closed from 4 to 9 a.m.
Prostitution was legalized in the Netherlands in 2000. It has been tolerated in Amsterdam since the 1600s, when the spice trade made it one of the world’s wealthiest port cities. But the city has been tightening its rules since 2006 and shuttered a third of its brothel windows from 2007 to 2009.
Van der Laan said the city intends to introduce the new measures by July.
‘‘We think the situation is so grave that we have to act,’’ he told reporters.
He said young prostitutes were particularly vulnerable because they were often groomed by pimps who force them into service when they turn 18. He said the city’s first priority was to keep women from being pushed into prostitution and its second was to help those who wish to exit the profession.
Other measures he plans to introduce include forcing all brothel owners to submit a business plan.
The Dutch tolerance of prostitution has always been a subject of debate, and after it was legalized, city officials realized that move had not served to reduce abuses. A proposed new national law would create a database of registered prostitutes, but it has never been passed by Parliament.
I wouldn't tolerate that.
--more--"
"Dutch diplomat sentenced to 12 years for spying" by Toby Sterling | Associated Press, April 24, 2013
AMSTERDAM — A Dutch court sentenced a diplomat to 12 years in prison Tuesday for delivering confidential NATO and European Union documents to Russian agents. The case, one of the worst spying affairs in the Netherlands in memory, is linked to that of a couple on trial in Germany on similar charges....
Raymond Poeteray gave the Russians information about the civil war in Libya, EU fact-finding missions in Georgia, and Dutch peacekeeping missions in Kosovo and Afghanistan, causing ‘‘substantial’’ damage.
How?
Poeteray, 61, was working at the Netherlands’ Foreign Affairs Ministry after serving in the Dutch embassies in Hong Kong and Indonesia earlier in his diplomatic career, which began in 1978. He was arrested in March 2012 in connection with a German investigation.
--more--"
Hope you enjoyed it, readers.
