March 11, 2011

Amsterdam to pay hookers and marijuana parlours to quit

Filed under: Weird by Branko Collin @ 5:56 am

The downtown district of Amsterdam will start offering subsidies to ‘undesirable’ companies if they change their type of business. The district lists so called coffeeshops (marijuana parlours), currency exchanges, massage parlours, prostitutes, small supermarkets, and other businesses that draw tourists to the city as eligible for a subsidy.

The borough wants to kill all kinds of economic activities in order to increase the variety of economic activities. Don’t ask me, I just live here.

See also: Unesco pulls trigger on Amsterdam.

Link: Plein Plus. Photo by Wikimedia user Bachrach44 who placed it in the public domain.

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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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December 20, 2009

Apple shuns marijuana finder

Filed under: Online by Branko Collin @ 1:56 pm

Good news, potentially, for tourists visiting our fair capital. Martijn Wuite and friends have developed an iPhone app called Coffeeshopr that will let you find the nearest place in Amsterdam they will sell you the happy weed.

The bad news is that though Apple did allow the program to be sold, for now it can only be had from itunes.nl where tourists typically won’t shop, Wuite told Parool (“Censorship Apple hurts weed tourist“).

Coffeeshoppr is like a restaurant guide, except that with us, users can give their opinion about coffeeshops using the iPhone. We put Amsterdam’s 50 most important coffeeshops in the program. Visitors can judge the quality of both the venue itself and of the marijuana sold there.

We have tried to make the whole affair fool-proof, considering our reviewers will probably all be stoned.

Besides the coffeeshop locator and the review function, Coffeeshopr also contains instruction videos on how to use marijuana, and information on the Dutch legal situation.

Coffeeshop is the Dutch word–borrowed from English–for a place where marijuana is both sold and used. The Dutch word for a place that primarily sells coffee is koffiehuis.

(Image: Coffeeshopr.com)

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October 7, 2009

Amsterdam-like scent leads to destruction German cannabis field

Filed under: Weird by Branko Collin @ 12:09 pm

German police destroyed a marijuana field in Ruhrauen near Duisburg after they were tipped by a passer-by that it smelled “just like Amsterdam” there, writes Der Westen (German).

When the police checked out the nearby water protection area, they discovered and impounded 47 plants with a sum weight of 117 kilos. The plants were chopped up by city employees for “easier transportation” and further processing.

(Photo by Eric Caballero, some rights reserved.)

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July 12, 2009

Writer Simon Vinkenoog dies age 80

Filed under: Literature by Branko Collin @ 11:17 am

A week before his 81st birthday, writer Simon Vinkenoog died of a cerebral hemorrhage in Amsterdam last night. Vinkenoog was a poet, a writer of novels, and a strong proponent of the legalization of soft drugs. In 2004, when poet laureate Gerrit Komrij prematurely handed in his resignation, Vinkenoog was elected to serve the interim, until Driek van Wissen could take over.

Here is my pathetic attempt at translating one of the poems Vinkenoog wrote while in office:

Pamphlet

Pamphlet or quick prayer,*
love poem or protest song,
provided it is experienced,
grows wings, becomes redemption.

Once doom makes room
— for courage,
everything you do
becomes a living greeting:

“All that moves
will stay in motion
Make or break
— there is no choice

Nothing remains,
everything will disappear
your life a fireworks
or not.”

*) Note from the translator: what, no word for schietgebed (emergency prayer) in the English language?!

(Photo: Martijn S., some rights reserved, photo ‘shopped by me.)

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March 14, 2009

Blogging from prison

Filed under: General by Branko Collin @ 5:29 pm

A 56-year-old Dutch woman, Anna B. as she calls herself, was caught smuggling 8 kilos of “very good Dutch weed” into Italy, two years ago. Her lawyer managed to make it so that after a few months she could spend the rest of her 3 year 4 month sentence under house arrest. Friends got her an apartment in what appears to be a very idyllic village in Lombardia, and another stroke of luck made it so that she got two hours a day to go to the supermarket, time she uses to go hiking.

What does one do the rest of the day? Blogging (Dutch), taking pictures, making music, living on the Internet.

The lawyer called to tell me that next Monday, March 5, is the court date where we’ll again try and get me freedom of movement within the province between 7 a.m. and 11 p.m.

That’s quite a lot.

I really only wanted to sail a boat to the horizon for once. Or walk until I am tired. Or eat the daily special at the daily special restaurant at the top of the hill. Hmmm, nice.

Anna got her extra bit of freedom last week (Dutch).

Photo of Lake Como by ezioman, some rights reserved.

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March 1, 2009

Robert Jasper Grootveld, co-founder Provo movement dies

Filed under: Art,General,History by Branko Collin @ 10:54 am

On Saturday evenings their parents were watching the TV with their left eyes, and the cars in front of the houses with their right, seated on refrigerators and washing machines, with mixers in the one hand and copies of De Telegraaf in the other, and the children went to the Spui. […] When the electrical clock on the Lutheran church indicated it was midnight, the high priest appeared from an alley in full regalia, sometimes with painted face, sometimes masked, and started to walk magical circles around the nicotinian demon, his disciples clapping and singing the Cough Cough song all the while.

Thus describes Harry Mulisch in his book Report to the Rat King the happenings of self-proclaimed ‘anti-smoke mage’ Robert Jasper Grootveld who died last week at age 76.

I’ll just say it: Grootveld was instrumental in harnessing the counter-culture movement of the 1960s and helping decide its course, and as a result the course of the Netherlands. BN/De Stem calls him (Dutch): “the man who put Amsterdam on the map,” and Marijuana Library holds the Provo movement responsible for the Netherlands’ current drug laws.

(more…)

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February 14, 2009

Willy Wonka of weed will win trip to Amsterdam

Filed under: Film by Branko Collin @ 9:43 am

A UK film distributor has started a contest that will see its winner flown to Amsterdam, by plane that is, to collect a bag of marijuana. The distributor, Revolver Entertainment, is holding the contest to promote its film The Wackness.

Writes Revolver:

Yes, you heard us correctly! We’re offering the chance for you to win a fabulous weekend break for 2 to the city of smoke itself, the beautiful Amsterdam. But that’s not all… the lucky winner will also be able to pick up a complimentary bag of skunk from legendary Amsterdam café, Hill Street Blues.

Hidden within one of the first 1,000 DVDs of The Wackness is a Golden Ticket. Find the Golden Ticket and you win! It’s that simple.

Just as mayor Cohen thought he was getting rid of a certain type of British tourist…

Link: BoingBoing. Photo by Sony Pictures.

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December 5, 2008

Screw nannyism, smoke the best weed and be merry

Filed under: General,Nature by Orangemaster @ 11:11 am
Cannabis Cup

I read on Twitter this morning that someone could not buy any chocolate cigarettes at the sweets shop as a Sinterklaas gift for their kids. Apparently, the shop doesn’t carry them anymore because that would encourage kids to start smoking at an earlier age. I can think of a multitude of things you shouldn’t buy your children, full stop. Will ordinary mushrooms be next? What about ice lollies?

All this nannyism (in Dutch, betutteling) is putting a damper on some people’s holiday spirit much more than any financial crisis could, it seems. Besides small cafés ignoring the smoking ban and the waves of protests and enforcement problems, many Dutch cities like Rotterdam and Amsterdam will be closing down coffeeshops (where you buy weed and hasch) that are located too close to schools. Not a bad idea per se, but why let them set up shop there in the first place? Back then, I guess the government was liberal enough to let parents explain right and wrong to their kids. Then, there’s Maastricht being pressured by neighbouring Belgium and Germany to shut shops to cut down on cross-border smoking.

Blaming the Netherlands has been going on for ages. During a speech held in Amsterdam a few years back, French President Jacques Chirac blamed the Netherlands for their cross-border dope-smoking problems, failing to notice that the Netherlands doesn’t share a border with France. That border is called Belgium. Belgium was not amused.

But, in order to show you that things are still smokin’, coffeshop De Greehouse in Amsterdam, which I had heard of even before living in the Netherlands, has just won the prestigious Cannabis Cup, well known by readers of High Times magazine, the magazine for pot smokers and growers, for some weed that sounds more like a kind of lady’s tea: Super Lemon Haze. Follow the link below for a good, educational video with much English in it.

(Link: parool.nl)

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February 2, 2008

First smoke-free coffeeshop in the Netherlands

Filed under: Dutch first,General by Orangemaster @ 12:13 pm
smoking1.jpg

As of 1 February, Boerenjongens, an Amsterdam coffeeshop (a place to smoke marijuana and haschisch in the Netherlands) decided to ban smoking inside its establishment. Owner Martijn van Bennekom says that all his employees were for a ban on smoking. “It’s much nicer to work in a smoke-free environment than to work in smoke the whole day”. While some patrons have no problems with the idea, others think it’s weird. “You can’t drink alcohol in a coffeeshop and now you can’t smoke. All you can do is drink coffee now.” So people come to buy drugs and leave because you can’t smoke in front of the coffeeshop either. The owner says he hopes that selling fancy juices, coffee and the smoking ban will attract people who wouldn’t normally go to a coffeeshop. One patron said, “when you go to the supermarket you just buy your food, you don’t eat it there.” That’s one way to look at it.

(Link: Zoomin)

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