Part 7: I was the last cannabis tourist in The Netherlands!

Wietpas = weed pass = you now need one of these to prove you’re a NL resident allowed to transact at coffee shops.

That the sands of time were running out on cannabis tourism in The Netherlands as we know it has been hinted at all through this series.

How many premonitions do you want? Remember hearing:

  • Things just seemed off in Amsterdam coffee shops?
  • That the red light/coffee shop district didn’t feel all that enticing?
  • Sheeba budtender Toni telling us English tourists can’t have just one beer, they have to have ten?

That’s how cannabis gods operate. They give you an idea what’s going to happen before it happens, adding to their mystique.

Read it and weep from Reuters:

The Dutch government on Friday said it would start banning tourists from buying cannabis from “coffee shops” and impose restrictions on Dutch customers by the end of the year.

The Netherlands is well known for having one of Europe’s most liberal soft drug policies that has made its cannabis shops a popular tourist attraction, particularly in Amsterdam.

Backed by the far-right party of anti-immigrant politician Geert Wilders, the coalition government that came into power last year announced plans to curb drug tourism as part of a nationwide program to promote health and fight crime.

“In order to tackle the nuisance and criminality associated with coffee shops and drug trafficking, the open-door policy of coffee shops will end,” the Dutch health and justice ministers wrote in a letter to the country’s parliament on Friday.

Instant analysis:

  • The government could have banned sales of alcohol from coffee shops, but no, it decided cannabis tourism itself was the problem — not the fact it was so easy for tourists to commingle alcohol and cannabis.
  • The dispatch from Reuters of course ignores the fact that the NL government exacerbated the “criminality” in the first place by cracking down on growers to the point only organized crime would take the risks.
  • How much do you think the NL government cares about health and justice in a country where the legal drinking age is sixteen and not drinking yourself silly on Queen’s Day is considered unpatriotic?
  • This is really sad for the NL. Here’s a country which just pulled the plug on cannabis tourism the day after it lost it title as the greenest country on earth — even as it vies for the distinction of “The Country Which Prescribes the Most Ritalin for Kids.” The NL may be even more obsessed with prescribing Ritalin for adolescents and teens who don’t conform to its notion of “normal” than the US. In fact, the number of Ritalin prescriptions in the Netherlands has increased in ten years from 65,000 to 600,000 according to Radio Netherlands Worldwide. Why am I bringing this up? It sends the world the following message: we’re all about giving kids speed to correct their “antisocial” behavior … at the expense of researching the proven capability of cannabinoids to take the edge off without the perilous side effects.
  • The NL seems to be saying, “God forbid the same kids we put on Ritalin get their hands on any weed! It could lead to something dangerous!” In other words: Ritalin = no more harmful than aspirin; pot = demonic drug.

Sound familiar?

Wow. Just wow!

And where did I receive this not entirely unanticipated but still shocking news?

At Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport, just before I boarded my flight bound for the newly crowned Jolly Green Giant. What timing! That meant I had earned a distinction that will forever glow on my permanent record: I was the last cannabis tourist in The Netherlands!

That’s achievement. That’s accomplishment.

At the very least, the unexpected distinction is food for thought on the plane ride home. Don’t be surprised if further reflections appear somewhere over Greenland. If you can’t get inspired by the vast, desolate expanse, where, under the stress of global warming, once-mighty glaciers fracture and fall into the sea  — you’re dead.