December 3, 2018

Girl tells on daddy’s green plants

Filed under: General,Weird by Orangemaster @ 1:25 pm

Not long after a goose pointed the cops to a big drugs lab, a young girl got her father into trouble while talking about his extra curricular activities at school.

A man and father from Hengelo, Overijssel was sentenced to 80 hours of community service for illegally growing cannabis. “My dad has green plants in the attic”, the girl said. There was 450 odd plants in said attic, which is 445 more than usually allowed. Daddy was cultivating cannabis to make some much needed extra money due to circumstances, including mommy moving out and his car breaking down.

He used legal equipment bought at the DIY store and legal electricity, which isn’t standard fare. And he didn’t get high on his own supply, but he still got busted.

The moral of this story: maybe let your kid talk about what mommy does on career day even if she might be a housewife, it’s safer.

(Link: nltimes.nl)

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January 20, 2018

Former Dutch Prime Minister has his first joint

Filed under: Dutch first,Health,History by Orangemaster @ 12:33 pm

Dries van Agt, 86, served as Prime Minister of the Netherlands from late 1977 until late 1982. Of all his achievements, the one that stands out for many is the introduction of ‘turning a blind eye’ (in Dutch, ‘gedoogbeleid’) to the use of marijuana and hash 42 years ago as of January 17, 2017, which was a world’s first.

Van Agt was Justice Minister before he was PM, and together with Irene Vorrink the Minister of Health at the time, they are the reason why the world assumes pot is legal in the Netherlands when it fact, it is absolutely not. They are also the reason why the Dutch have been making a distinction between soft drugs and hard drugs since 1976.

In November 2009 Van Agt received the Cannabis Culture Award of the Hash, Marihuana & Hemp Museum in Amsterdam, but this week he was awarded the Koos Zwart Award in Tilburg, an annual award given to people who have been instrumental in moving towards legalisation and normalisation of cannabis in the Netherlands. The award is named after hash activist Koos Zwart who died in 2014 and who happens to be Irene Vorrink’s son. The former premier held a speech in 2016 at the Cannabis Liberation Day in Amsterdam to plead for the legalisation of marijuana.

And on January 17, Van Agt smoked his first ever joint (pic).

(Link: www.vice.com)

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March 15, 2016

Dutch cities do well as drug capitals

Filed under: General,Health by Orangemaster @ 8:55 pm

Testing waste water for drugs has again put Amsterdam at the top of the list of European drug capitals: it scored top marks for MDMA, the main ingredient of XTC, and cannabis. While London nabbed first place for cocaine with 737,3 milligrams per 1000 residents per day, Amsterdam is not far behind with 716,4 milligrams per 1000 residents per day. Amsterdam usually makes this list no matter what’s in the water, and that also seems to go for Utrecht and Eindhoven.

Number two for cannabis is Barcelona with 165,7 milligrams per 1000 residents per day, but apparently it doesn’t even come close to Amsterdam that has 469,4 milligrams per 1000 residents per day. The top 5 in cannabis also includes Utrecht and Eindhoven respectively fourth and fifth, with Antwerp in third place.

Scandinavian cities are still more into speed, but the top city in Europe for speed is Antwerp. In the Netherlands, Amsterdam is the speed capital, while Eindhoven is second in Europe after Antwerp.

(Link: www.binnenlandsbestuur.nl, nos.nl, Photo: DEA)

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July 15, 2015

Artists funded to sow pot seeds in Amsterdam

Filed under: Nature,Weird by Orangemaster @ 1:28 pm

The Amsterdam chapter of the Awesome Foundation that awards people money every month to realize ‘awesome initiatives that solve problems or bring joy to the world’ has given art collective Indebt Studios 1000 euro to plant marijuana seeds around town.

The group bought some 40 kilos of cannabis seeds and planted them in all kinds of green spaces in Amsterdam, from flower pots to community gardens, including the ones at the Rijksmuseum.

Why plant 40 kilos of weed? It’s an artistic statement against the increased stamping up of Amsterdam’s wild side, like trying to shut down prostitutes, coffee shops and all the things that make Amsterdam what it is in the first place. “Yoghurt bars are not going to make up for the loss, and that’s sad,” one of the guys said. Big cities like New York and London are losing or have lost their edge, and yes it would be sad if Amsterdam lost its grit, too.

(Link: nieuws.nl)

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December 5, 2014

Dutch-American company to make marijuana gum

Filed under: Health,Science by Orangemaster @ 10:53 am

Dutch-American company Axim is working on the world’s first medicinal marijuana chewing gum, which will be produced in Almere, Flevoland. It should be on the market in two years and it is currently being tested on Dutch patients who have chronic pain due to multiple sclerosis. This special chewing gum will work like nicotine gum, with the cannabis being absorbed slowly by the body in some 20 minutes.

You can easily buy ‘nutraceutical’ chewing gum that contains cannabidiol (CBD), the non-psychoactive component of pot, but Axim plans to make chewing gum with THC in it, the psychoactive ingredient of pot for patients who suffer chronic pain from many different medical conditions.

(Links: www.foodlog.nl, www.in-pharmatechnologist.com)

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October 21, 2014

Historical verdict in weed growers’ case

Filed under: Dutch first by Orangemaster @ 1:56 pm

The court of Groningen handed down a ‘historical verdict’ last Thursday by refusing to punish two cannabis growers who ‘safely and responsibly’ carry out their work, only selling to coffee shops and even paying taxes. While the court found the growers guilty of cultivating weed, it refused to punish them for doing so, underlying the Dutch hypocrisy of punishing ‘the back door’ while turning a blind eye to selling through ‘the front door’. Weed sold in coffee shops is ‘tolerated’ and still illegal, but it continues to be supplied illegally, which is often challenged.

“Coffee shops must supply themselves and so cultivation must be done to satisfy these demands,” the Groningen court said, “but the law does not state how this supply should be done.” What growers do is illegal, but allowing the sale of cannabis since 1976 in coffee shops is very hypocritical and blatantly encourages crime.

The government enjoys the tax money it gets from legitimate businesses like coffee shops, and now the back door has now been left open. Other growers could also soon go unpunished, en route to the legal supply of cannabis for coffee shops.

(Links: phys.org, www.voc-nederland.org)

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May 29, 2014

Dutch cities top drug use chart

Filed under: General,Science by Orangemaster @ 9:16 am

Out of 42 European cities in 21 countries, three Dutch cities show up in the top 10 for drug use, according to the European Drug Report 2014 of the EMCDDA.

The trio of Eindhoven, Utrecht and Amsterdam can be described as the ‘MDMA capital cities of Europe’, respectively in positions 1, 2 and 3. Eindhoven is off the charts as far as speed is concerned, probably because it is often dumped directly into the sewers by makers.

The number one cannabis smoking wonderland isn’t Amsterdam, although Amsterdam is number two. Number one is Novi Sad in Serbia. Amsterdam, Eindhoven and Utrecht are numbers two, seven and thirteen for cocaine use.

We told you a while back that Amsterdam’s sewers are full of hard drugs.

(Links: www.volkskrant.nl, www.nu.nl)

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April 13, 2012

Ancient cannabis found during railway construction

Filed under: General,History by Orangemaster @ 3:29 pm

With an emphasis on most probably, archaeologists have found bits of what looks like Cannabis sativa in a grave from the stone age some 4200 years ago near Hattemerbroek where digging is going on to build the Hanseatic railway line. It would also be the first time that cannabis has been found in a grave in the Netherlands. They also found other medicinal plants, jewels, tools and drinking cups.

This part of the country has apparently never been really dug up, and so who knows what they’ll find next, as the railway will only be ready in December 2012. The Hanseatic line (Hanzelijn in Dutch) will connect the Randstad conurbation with the Northwest part of the country, namely the cities of Leeuwarden and Groningen (see map).

Currently, the only way to get up there by train is through Amersfoort (cut off on the map, the white square below Zwolle on the blue line more to the right) and then Zwolle, but it involves switching trains at Zwolle because they are no direct trains (intercity trains) like in the rest of the country. It takes a good three hours to get there and people from Leeuwarden and Groningen are a bit fed up of having to switch trains when then commute.

The good news is, wait, it’s bad news. The Hanseatic line will connect Lelystad to Zwolle avoiding Amersfoort , but it will unfortunately take the same amount of time for commuters. Train infrastructure company ProRail has said that commuters will still have to switch at Zwolle without explaining why that is, and so there’s a petition doing the rounds against it. I can imagine they feel like second-class citizens, knowing that if you live in Maastricht or Heerlen you can usually go to Amsterdam Central Station in one go.

(Links: www.waarmaarraar.nl, www.prorailpersberichten.nl, Photos Photo by Eric Caballero, some rights reserved, Photo of Intercitynet NL 2013 by Classical geographer, some rights reserved)

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November 10, 2010

Cannabis scratch and sniff cards to sniff out illegal plantations

Filed under: Dutch first,General,Weird by Orangemaster @ 11:24 am

Contrary to the myths about the Dutch and marijuana, the authorities will let you own five plants even though it is technically illegal. Professional illegal growers usually have hundreds of them and then they really do give off a smell. To try and find these plantations Dutch authorities have apparently been handing out 30,000 scratch and sniff cards in The Hague and Rotterdam with a marijuana odour this week to alert citizens to what their neighbours may be up to. “Though it remains technically illegal, the Netherlands decriminalised the consumption and possession of under five grammes (0.18 ounces) of cannabis in 1976 under a ‘tolerance’ policy.”

Authorities believe there are some 40,000 illegal cannabis plantations in the Netherlands — hidden away in attics, apartments or warehouses. About 6,000 plantations are busted every year.
Of these about 300, each with between 600 and 1,000 plants, were uncovered in Rotterdam alone.

This reminds me of our posting about a German woman who complained that it “smelled like Amsterdam” at the neighbours. Another rookie myth is that Amsterdam has the coffeeshops and the pot, but in fact, pot, much like prostitutes, can be found throughout the entire country.

(Link: google.com, Thanks Greg! Photo by Eric Caballero, some rights reserved)

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