Pinned
Amsterdam alrite chaps
goin to Amsterdam at the end of the month for a few dayz. I aven't been for bout 10 years and need guidance. Want to do it on the cheap but cheerful. wiv me bird. any accommodation tips (double), places to go - aint a massive puff ead so wanta see sum stuff ta remember. nice food places sex shops museums etc. Most important - a place to rave it up. hope ya all had a good NYE - we went to a old nite club in Yeovil wot were der other parties like?
p.s u can get return flights for between £20-40 at mo on easyjet!12…1112
REPLACING A LOST PASSPORT alright guys
basically im a massive TWAT and left replacing my lost passport to the very last minute. Im going to Amsterdam this weekend, on Friday but lost my passport over a year ago. I thought you could go to London for the one day service to get it replaced, but according to their website, you cant replace a passport with the Premium service. SHITTY BOLLOCKS! Do u rekon if i use the fast track one week service ill have my passport by Friday evening?
Im travelling by coach and havent actually reported the passport lost yet. do u think if i ust got on the coach and when i get to the boarder they ask for the passport i can say i lost it on the way and they would let me in? Is it possible to get a temorary passport?
should have sorted this shit out weeks ago...!
Amsterdam Post Smoking Ban … Me and my fella are off to Amsterdam in late Aug, was wondering if any of you lot have been since the smoking ban has come into effect and what is the state of play etc etc? I know that there are loop-holes in the law (pure joints are OK because there is no tobacco in them) but would like to know what the situation is ?
dutch police debate
From The Times
December 27, 2007
Amsterdam's drug police demand right to keep on smoking cannabis
Police in Rotterdam seize marijuana plants. Although possession of small amounts is tolerated, cultivation is illegal
When it comes to turning a blind eye to cannabis use in Europe’s most tolerant city, police in Amsterdam are demanding the right to practise what they preach.
Officers in the capital of the Netherlands are in open revolt against a new code of behaviour that orders them to stop taking drugs in their free time.
The new rules, due to come in on January 1, have upset officers who patrol the city’s infamous coffee shops, where cannabis is smoked openly by locals and millions of tourists attracted by Amsterdam’s relaxed atmosphere.
It has been their duty for years to operate a policy of nonenforcement over the coffee shop culture. Now the police union will back its members in defying the cannabis ban. The union has vowed to bring a test case in court against the first officer to fall foul of the new rules, claiming that they amount to an unjustified intrusion into personal life.
“Police should not be put in pigeonholes in which they can no longer be themselves,” said Hans van Duijn, the chairman of the Nederlandse Politie Bond, the police union. “If you allow people in the country to smoke [cannabis], you would be a hypocrite to say to the police officers, ‘You are not allowed to do that’.
“It is illegal by law but we allow it for everybody else just to use it in small amounts for themselves. There must be scope for using soft drugs.”
The code, however, is only the latest example of a backlash against years of Dutch tolerance that have given Amsterdam a seedy reputation that the city’s authorities are keen to reverse. This month Job Cohen, the Mayor, unveiled plans to convert scores of Amsterdam’s notorious prostitutes’ windows into fashion displays in an attempt to clean up parts of the red-light zone around some of the more attractive streets and canals. He has also led intense efforts to close coffee shops and so-called smart shops, which sell harder drugs such as magic mushrooms.
Supplying and possessing cannabis remains illegal in the Netherlands and police have always been banned from drinking or taking drugs on duty. But the city force now wants all officers to set a better example.
“Hitherto, it was only clear that you could not appear at your work drunk or stoned,” a police spokesman said. “We are now saying: You are also seen as a police officer when off-duty.” The use of alcohol is permitted when off-duty but officers should not be seen “drunkenly babbling on the street” in their free time, the spokesman said.
The code states that officers must behave as “model citizens”. The key words they must live by are “respect, transparency, responsibility, involvement, trustworthiness, justice and balance”.
Mr van Duijn remained defiant. “If there is one police officer who has been smoking a soft drug in private and they catch him, we will go to court to ask to be treated as everybody else.”
Unlike the Police Federation in Britain, the NPB union has full powers of industrial action. In a dispute over pay, the NPB has forced the postponement of several top-level football matches this month by refusing to work overtime and is planning to use its strike powers from January 9 if it does not get a better salary offer.
Amsty bound I'm headed to Amsterdam soon with a few friends. Does anyone know where/how to score any ecstasy/MDMA there? Any help would be appreciated.. Thanks!
Amsterdam…. Where would people reccomend in terms of places to stay?
Need a double room preferably not too expensive. Normally not too fussed and a hostl will do but this time I'd rather have some privacy.
I wanna meet ya I am going to take trip to Holland, Amsterdam and would like to meet up with any one who posts on here who lives there?
I am going with a friend and this is my first time!! I haven't been abroad since I was 3 and I am 22 now.
I am going around the beggining of October, let me know if anyone wants to hook up.
Lost weekend in Amsterdam – hopefully! going to the dam 25th -27th march are radical rehousing stil doing free parties? ?If so were do i pick up flyers or site address? Are DIY still going in Nottingham and/or Smokescreen?
EU Countries soften CANNABIS policy – June 2001 EU Countries soften cannabis policy
By RNW.nl - June 2001
Copyright: RNW.nl
National drugs policies within the European Union do not differ as much as you might think - at least not in implementation. This past week, experts and officials from around the EU met in the central Dutch city of Utrecht to exchange views at the European City Conference on Cannabis policy. The main conclusion: all European cities are having to contend with similar problems.
It was only natural to hold the conference in the Netherlands, one would have thought. After all, the Netherlands has passed legislation aimed at decriminalizing soft drugs such as hashish and marijuana. But The Netherlands is no longer leading the way when it comes to legalising drugs. It's having to deal with the downside of its liberal policies, as Steven van Hoogstraten, the Director of Drugs policy at the Dutch Justice Ministry, pointed out.
"There are risks involved in the use of cannabis, even though we do not know precisely what these risks are. Cannabis is still an illegal substance in The Netherlands and we have obligations in the shape of international conventions in this respect."
Coffeeshops:
Nevertheless, the use of cannabis is allowed in the Netherlands. Coffeeshops are permitted to sell soft drugs, but only under strict conditions. And there's the rub: the shops are allowed to sell cannabis, but purchasing soft drugs is still illegal and trading or growing cannabis remains a punishable offence. Steven van Hoogstraten acknowledges there are ambiguities.
"The results of our policy can be called acceptable. But from a government perspective, the situation is simply not satisfactory. On the one hand, we forbid something, on the other we tolerate it. This is difficult to explain to people."
The Netherlands is still a frontrunner in Europe. But other European countries are catching up. Belgium's federal government is preparing legislation aimed at legalizing soft drugs. It's an indirect effect of the liberal policies of its northern neighbour: many Belgian youths buy their dope across the Dutch border but cause problems in their own country.
Health Issue:
France used to be vehemently opposed to the Dutch liberal approach, but it's now relaxing its tough drugs laws, too. In recent years, the French government has treated drugs-related problems as "health matters", with the emphasis on prevention and the treatment of addicts.
Portugal is about to go a step further than the Netherlands: in July, it passed a law decriminalising the use of all drugs and it's now turning a blind eye to the limited use of soft and hard drugs. Danila Ballota of the European Drugs Monitoring Centre in Lisbon, explains the new Portuguese law.
"A person who is caught in possession of a limited amount of drugs will not be treated as a criminal but will be dealt with in an administrative way."
This applies to both cannabis and heroin, where limited users will get off with a reprimand.
Drugs-Related Problems:
Official policies may differ among EU member states, but in practice these countries often act in the same way. All have to deal with drugs-related problems such as rising crime rates. This has led to a plethora of aid programmes ranging from the free distribution of drugs to tolerating cannabis abuse. There's only one EU country that doesn't believe in legalisation: it's Sweden and Malou Lindholm, representing the city of Goethenborg, explains why.
"In the 1960s, Sweden was actually the first country to adopt a drug liberal policy, well before the Netherlands. We didn't single out cannabis, we even allowed prescriptions of hard drugs for addicts. The results were devastating. The number of people starting to abuse drugs or becoming addicts just sky-rocketed."
If it's up to Sweden, there will be no change to its current tough policy on drugs. This puts a major obstacle in the way of a common European policy on drugs. But it also means that there remains a lot to talk about. A follow-up conference is scheduled for February in Brussels.
http://www.rnw.nl/
Drugs and crime in the Netherlands – June 2001 Drugs and crime in the Netherlands
By RNW.nl - June 2001
Copyright: RNW.nl
Drugs and drug use are inevitably linked to crime. Possession of drugs is illegal and dealing and large-scale trafficking are serious offences. The latter is mainly the business of organised crime. Big money is involved and profits are high.
Combating large-scale drug trafficking is top of the list of priorities for the Dutch Public Prosecution Department. New legislation has come into force to counter money laundering and to confiscate financial assets of convicted drug dealers.
Financing the Habit:
Drugs and crime are also linked because a lot of drug addicts need to steal in order to finance their habit. It is this procurement crime that bothers the public most about drugs: the petty crime of street muggings and small thefts. In Amsterdam no bicycle is safe from junkies, who know how to open every lock ever invented. Car radios were popular trade too, until manufacturers equipped them with security devices. A small group of hard core junkies is responsible for the majority of these offences. Dealing with them involves intensive co-operation between the police, the judicial authorities and the addiction care sector. They use theso-called compulsion and dissuasion approach: when arrested some addicts are given the choice between serving time in prison or undergoing treatment. The threat of detention is used as an incentive to treatment. The treatment primarily aims at kicking the habit, and if successful at social reintegration. No details are available yet about the effectiveness of this approach.
Public Order:
It is not only because of crimes against property that drug addicts come into contact with police and judicial authorities. Their maladjusted behaviour causes public order disturbances and creates a nuisance. They often lead a lifestyle of vagrancy and prostitution and tend to hang out round their trade locations, like city centres and train stations, where they make the public feel unsafe. They can be barred from gathering in certain places or areas, only for them to start hanging out somewhere else. Authorities increasingly try to pressure these addicts to undergo treatment, although no one in The Netherlands is forced to kick their habit.
Nuisance caused by coffee shops is comparable to that caused by bars and is therefore left to the municipal authorities to deal with.
Drug Tourism:
A separate issue is drug tourism. Especially drug runners are cause for concern (it is their job to lead likely prospective buyers from the border to the drughouses in the cities). They are particularly active on the Lille-Antwerp-Hazeldonk-Rotterdam route and get rather nasty and violent. Dutch police co-operates closely with their Belgian, French, German and British colleagues to combat drug tourism and drug runners. In recent years a more active deportation policy has been pursued for foreign drug addicts residing illegally in The Netherlands.
http://www.rnw.nl/
UK: Stockport goes Dutch – May 2002 Stockport goes Dutch
By BBC News - Wednesday, 24 July, 2002
Copyright: BBC News
Dutch entrepreneurs are preparing to test the UK's soft drug laws by opening up to 50 cannabis cafes. But there is already one such British establishment defying the police... in Stockport.
The opening of a so-called cannabis cafe in Stockport last September seems not to have caused the drab town on the outskirts of Manchester to descend into reefer madness.
Despite the media attention surrounding an establishment which openly flouts UK drug laws by allowing its customers to consume marijuana, many locals are unaware of its exact location.
"I've worked here for eight month and have never found it," says one man standing, as it happens, just a few hundreds yards from The Dutch Experience.
Close by a council flower planter boasting a few (unsmokeable) errant hemp leaves, a group of teenagers is even less help. Their ignorance of the cafe seems to suggest the town's youth are barely interested in - let alone being corrupted by - their proximity to soft drugs.
While not signposted, The Dutch Experience turns out to be no secretive drug den.
Situated in a cobbled arcade, the cafe's neighbours include a hairdressers, a jewellery shop and a fitness centre, where sandwiches can be ordered by those hungry for something more substantial than the cafe's crisps and chocolate bars.
Caffeine and cannabis
Inside the air is not exactly heavy with the odour of hashish. In fact the smell of instant coffee seems to be winning the day.
The serious smoking takes place in a members' room, into which you can only enter once you have provided two photos, shown your passport and signed a declaration that you are "not in anyway a police officer or informant of the police".
The form is useless in any legal sense, but is an act of defiance for a place raided three times by the local constabulary and whose creator, medicinal cannabis advocate Colin Davies, is in Strangeways Prison for his troubles.
Despite this, at least three customers are waiting in the public cafe to join up, the whole process of filling forms and issuing laminated cards going as efficiently as can be expected from a business conducted in a dope haze.
Softly softly approach
The walls are covered with graffiti, mainly variations on the theme "weed is good".
Any spare space is given over to "Free Colin Davies" posters, a photo of Mr Davies giving the Queen a bouquet laced with hemp leaves and a picture of Brian Paddick - the London police officer who pioneered leniency towards soft drug use.
Stacked beside the stereo are exactly the sort of CDs you'd expect to be on heavy rotation. Bob Marley, The Chemical Brothers, Bob Dylan... and er, Chris Rea.
Berry - a young clog-wearing Dutchman who once guided tourists around Amsterdam's government-tolerated cannabis coffee shops - says the 1,200-strong clientele doesn't really fit the stoner stereotype.
"This place is busier than any coffee shop I've ever seen in Amsterdam. In the day it's mainly medicinal users - people in wheelchairs and on crutches.
"We have the suits popping in at lunchtime. Then at night it's a bit more recreational - nurses, teachers, that sort of person. Our youngest member is 18, the oldest 90-something."
Berry is keen to stress the cafe's service to those who say their use of cannabis eases the symptoms of serious illness. "We have people with cancer, Aids, multiple sclerosis - not drug scene people at all. It's criminal that the government makes them go to street dealers who sell harder drugs too."
Pot for pain
Though many of today's smokers are fit and healthy (though hardly bright-eyed) young men, Caroline - who smokes because of a crippling spinal problem - backs up Berry's argument.
"I was always dead against cannabis. I even shopped my son to the police when I found out he'd taken it. But now it's the only thing that lets me get out of my wheelchair and walk with my crutches."
Caroline says she doesn't mind sharing the cafe with recreational users. "As a woman, I wouldn't go into a pub alone. Here I feel comfortable. We're a community that looks after one another."
The community spirit doesn't extend to the cafe's landlord - who is said not to be keen on his outlaw tenant and is no longer cashing the rent cheques. So what do the neighbours think of The Dutch Experience?
Hardly a tourist Mecca, the cafe has at least raised Stockport's profile.
"We had lots of enquires by phone and in person when the cafe was first in the news," says a woman from the nearby tourist information office.
Further upwind from the pungent extractor fan which services the cafe's members' room, one shopkeeper professes to not understanding what all the fuss is about.
"They're no trouble. You get some people hanging around, but they're too spaced out to cause any trouble."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/
UK: Britain’s first CANNABIS Coffee shop opens – September 2001 Britain's first Cannabis Coffee shop opens
by UKCIA
Britains first Amsterdam style coffee shop opened on the 15th September 2001 in Oldham, Manchester.
News of the event broke on the UKCIA mailing list, the activist list that passes information:
"Just heard from cc-news that the opening of the planned Dutch-style coffeeshop in Stockport has been stopped by police. Colin Davies and three Dutch citizens have been arrested and are presently banged up by the police. Meanwhile there is a crowd of about 100 outside smoking pipes, joints and bongs. This, of course, comes as little surprise to anyone! Good luck to them all"
Sat, 15 Sep 2001
Subject: [UKCIA] UK: UK cannabis cafe manager is arrested
From: shug
Source: Ananova
The manager of Britain's first Amsterdam-style cafe which aims to sell cannabis has reportedly been arrested shortly after the business opened.
A scuffle broke out at the entrance of the cafe when a plain clothed detective revealed to cafe owner Colin Davies that he was inside. Police had warned Mr Davies that The Dutch Experience, based in the centre of Stockport, Greater Manchester, would be shut down if it was found to be breaking the law.
Mr Davies came out of his business just after opening demanding that the police officer showed him a warrant. A uniformed officer outside the shop was involved in an altercation with Mr Davies, who was trapped in the door. Mr Davies came out to greet a woman in a wheelchair and pushed her back into the shop saying: "She is a sick woman and needs cannabis to relieve her pain." The scuffle continued and Mr Davies was seen inside the cafe slumped on the floor.
At 10.15am he was led away by two female plain clothed detectives amid shouts from his supporters. As Mr Davies was put into the back of a police van, one of his supporters shouted: "He's a healer not a dealer." A Greater Manchester Police spokeswoman said: "A man has been arrested for the possession of cannabis with intent to supply. A search of the premises will now be conducted."
Police officers arrived in greater numbers at about 10.30am and entered the cafe where they carried out a search of every person there. Several people were arrested on suspicion of possession of cannabis and as they were led away a crowd of supporters outside cheered. Supporters of Mr Davies began smoking cannabis outside the cafe as the police watched. The wheelchair users lit pipes filled with the drug as police officers stood just two yards away.
http://www.ukcia.org/
UK: Cannabis man arrested at cafe opening – September 2001 Cannabis man arrested at cafe opening
By BBC News - Saturday, 15 September, 2001
Copyright: BBC News
A drugs campaigner has been arrested after attempting to open the UK's first Amsterdam-style marijuana cafe.
Colin Davies, who has called for legalisation of the drug for medicinal purposes, was taken away by two plain clothes detectives from his cafe in Stockport, Greater Manchester.
The arrest came just minutes after he had opened the doors of "The Dutch Experience", a cafe modelled on the coffee shops of Amsterdam.
A scuffle broke out shortly after 1000 BST on Saturday between Mr Davies and members of Greater Manchester Police, which had promised to rigorously enforce the law regarding cannabis.
Disabled users
Fifteen minutes later he was led away amidst shouts from his supporters, one who cried: "He's a healer not a dealer."
A Greater Manchester Police spokeswoman said: "A man has been arrested for the possession of cannabis with intent to supply."
More police officers arrived at 1030 BST and entered the cafe where they carried out a search of everybody there.
Supporters of Mr Davies began smoking cannabis outside the cafe as the police watched.
Wheelchair users lit pipes filled with the drug as police officers stood yards away.
'Undignified experience'
Later a police spokesman said six people in total had been arrested at the cafe.
They said three Dutch men, a Dutch woman and two UK male resident had been arrested on suspicion of being concerned with the supply of controlled drugs.
Kate Bradley, a former policewoman with West Midlands Police, has smoked cannabis since 1991 after being diagnosed with multiple sclerosis.
Mrs Bradley, of Telford, Shropshire, was not arrested and was pushed in her wheelchair out of the cafe.
She said that when the police raided the premises it was an "undignified and horrendous experience".
Mr Davies founded the Medical Marijuana Co-operative to help fellow pain sufferers by providing them with cannabis.
Broken spine
He said he was forced to use the drug out of medical necessity and supplied it to two sufferers of multiple sclerosis for the same reason.
Mr Davies, who lives in Stockport, had flagged up the cafe as "the UK's first Medipot Coffee Shop".
He said the cafe had facilities to accommodate disabled visitors who used the drug for pain relief.
Mr Davies' father, 71-year-old Colin Davies, said his son smoked the drug to relieve his pain since he broke his spine in a 70-feet fall down a riverbank four years ago.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/
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