This is a follow-up article on “Netherlands to ban ‘magic’ mushrooms starting December 1“.
Amsterdam, Saturday 8th November 2008
The Association of Smartshopowners has been surprised and is disappointed about the decision of the government of last Friday to implement the intended ban on magic mushrooms as from December 1st. The Association will take legal action.
The Association condemns the decision of the Government since both Ministers of Justice and of Public Health refuse to listen to the stream of warnings from the experts, scientists and from the Association. The warnings consistently refer to the increased dangers of unwanted side effects of such a ban. The Association was in regular discussions with the Government over the past ten years in order to properly regulate the market for hallucinogenic mushrooms and pleaded consistently for proper regulation rather than banning the ‘shrooms’. The Association deplores that, by the decision of the government, further co-operation is made impossible and that her members and their customers are facing an accomplished fact in a rather raw manner.
The Dutch Opiumwet (druglaw) requires that there must be a proof of damage to the public health and the community at large. Against a yearly turnover of some 1,5 million portions of magic mushrooms there is only a very small amount of incidents. Moreover, these incidents cannot be traced back to the exclusive use of ‘shrooms’. There has been no scientific investigation of such incidents nor has there been any toxicological examination. The Minister ignores the clear advice of his own advisory body (CAM) and bases his decision on unfounded assumptions and takes his own suppositions for granted.
The members of the Association are feeling highly derogated by this decision and by the clearly unreasonable attitude of the Minister.
A general ban on the sale of shrooms will inevitably lead to the closure of many smartshops whilst the remaining shops will incur a sizable financial loss. This aspect was hardly discussed in the parliamentary discussions about the proposed ban.
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Comments
7 responses to “Dutch smartshops take legal action against ban on magic mushrooms”
Bas,
I got the book tag done finally. 🙂
And now, as expected from what history has taught us, ‘shrooms will still be readily available in the Netherlands just as they are still available across the entire planet, despite their illegality; the only thing these newly outlawed shrooms will accomplish is lack of taxes being paid on purchased shrooms, as well as black market violence since these shrooms are no longer regulated by their government. it’s not an affect of the ‘shrooms themselves, it’s an affect of their illegality.
And that’s what I’m against.
Of course they’ll still be available in some way. I don’t care cuz I don’t intend on using them. I’m writing about this issue because of the problems this ban causes.
It seems strange that a country that has shown tolorence and understanding for drugs that are misused and abused like heroin and cocaine should ban a pleasurable recreational medicine plant like mushrooms. Alcohol cocaine, heroin, prostitutes and porn is cool but don’t touch those little mushrooms… wouldn’t like you to explore your mind too much!
How sad is that… 🙁
One of endless proof’s to how smart decisions can religion lead on.. Netherlands, our last hope will be destroyed byte by byte… “war on drugs” has been arrived and if it gos on like that had drug use WILL increase a lot soon & other health problems..
(drug addiction among drug users is up to 0.3 in Netherlands – Europa average is 0.53+…)
[…] Dutch smartshops take legal action against ban on magic mushrooms […]
It’s sad because people will still find them if there legal or not. Crime will rise and will cost the government more in the long run.