At airports, hotels, and exchange bureaus in the Netherlands (mainly Amsterdam), allow tourists to purchase permit cards that allow tourists to enjoy a limited purchase of coffeeshop cannabis per day. Each permit card would have a bar code indicating the passport number of the purchaser, making it only possible to have 1 card per tourist. At each coffeeshop, a tourist would need to show their passport and the permit card. Upon purchasing cannabi, the permit card would magnetically keep track of amounts of cannabis purchased per day, and there would be a max-out limit. The cost of administering and maintaining permit cards would be covered by charging fees to purchase a permit card plus a profit for Dutch tourism, shared by the hotels and airports and other venues. This would in my opinion create a nice balance between monitoring the drug-related activities of tourists and not punishing responsible tourists. Would this be a good idea? AND if a tourist does commit a drug-related crime or causes a disturbance, then allow Dutch authorities to Void/suspend any tourist's cannabis permit card in the system. My point is you can charge money for the permit card, so this a profit-making idea, is good for tourism, and ALSO keeps marijuana crime in check. So this isn't about crime reduction or safety so much as international portrayal of Dutch culture? So it is Dutch people's cultural standard of common decency or do you speak for the entire West or the world standard of common decency to be led by Netherlands?
Netherlands - 2 Answers
Random Answers, Critics, Comments, Opinions :
1 :
No, it would not be a good idea since the whole idea of the card system is to get the drugs tourists to stay away. No, it's about us Dutch getting slowly fed up with dopeheads. Dopeheads in Amsterdam who think they can puke and be sick everywhere. Dopeheads in the south and east who think that, since dope is "legal" traffic rules or even common decency don't apply any more.
2 :
While the idea sounds reasonable - i do have a problem with it. First of all - you suggest that all tourists would be coming for, would be drugs. Newsflash, tolerance for drug addicts that only come here to feed their addiction is diminishing. Second - you`d in effect open a door to legalize hard drugs. Why? Because they`ll say "i have this card so that means drugs aren't bad - so why no cocaine/heroin/crack on the card" Third - drug related crime will happen regardless of it being illegal or legal. It`s people that walk with their heads drugged up acting criminally - similar to drunk driving (alcohol being legal, yet still alcohol related crimes are committed weekly) What we would like, is to people to stop perpetuating the lie that 'drugs are legal in Amsterdam'. As they simply are not. Or, to use the same logic - someone once told me that in the US he shot a burglar - and wasn't arrested. So, why is it legal in the US to shoot people? Frankly - i`d prefer the whole world waking up - and realizing the damage drugs, and alcohol, does - and everyone deciding to stop. now THAT would be a nice step towards world peace.
