Browsing: amsterdam

The Amsterdam Cannabis Cup was shut down on Sunday — its first day — for fear that “all participants would be arrested,” according to organizer High Times magazine.

For more than 30 years, marijuana fans and legalization supporters have marched on the first weekend in May in support of the cause. Despite legalization having occurred in Uruguay and the US states of Colorado and Washington, this year is no different.

Dutch Justice Minister Ivo Opstelten told parliament last week that the government intends to classify marijuana with a THC content of 15% or more as a Class A drug like heroin and cocaine and bar it from being sold in the country's famous cannabis coffee shops.

As I sat on the airplane after departing Amsterdam-Schipol airport heading back to Vancouver, I reflected on my three-week European getaway. My girlfriend and I started our adventure in Amsterdam. I always get a feeling of peace when I'm in there. There is such a strange feeling about a place where I do not have to worry about opening my purse and having a big bag of Tangerine Dream fall out onto the floor.

People living in the United States are used to politics and ideology trumping fact and science. As someone who shuttled between the US and the Netherlands for several decades, I always marveled at the difference in the way the two countries treated social issues. Dutch policies towards drugs, sex and sex education, support of the arts, and pulling people into the middle class were models for progressives throughout Europe and North America.
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