Dutch Christian Democrat minister of Public Health, Ab Klink, has announced the ban of selling and growing ‘magic mushrooms’, or shrooms, will take place on December 1. This knee-jerk reaction follows a media and political hype caused last year by the suicide of a 17-year old French tourist who was said to be under the influence of mushrooms at that time. It was also her second suicide attempt.
Politicians got riled up as the media started covering every mushroom mishap in Amsterdam. Since nobody really stopped campaigning since the last government was formed – as they’re doomed to fail – they saw this as a good chance to speak up, speak out and win votes. At the cost of liberty and sanity.
Ab Klink, minister of Public Health, previously asked the Coördinationpoint for the Assessment and Monitoring of new drugs (CAM) to research illegalizing shrooms. They concluded that these are the risks involving mushrooms:
- Health of the individual: no risk.
- Public health / society: minimal risk.
- Public order / safety: minimal risk.
- Criminal involvement: no risk.
The CAM advised against a ban on mushrooms for the following reasons:
- The smartshops selling the mushrooms might replace them by substances which carry more risk;
- It will lead to shrooms being sold in tablet-form, like XTC pills;
- Users would pick mushrooms in nature, which could lead to serious problems if they mistake the wrong type of mushrooms for the ones they are looking for;
- Users might switch to other drugs, which might be more interesting from a criminal perspective and possibly carry more risk for usage… Leading to more danger to the public;
- The banning of mushrooms is a rather tough sanction given the current problems its causing;
- Maintaining a ban would bring costs.
What did Ab Klink do? Ban them! Of course. The CAM was surprised as this is the first time a minister has ignored the advice of this advice organ. Minister Klink is obviously tripping. Or maybe he’d like to see the Bible as our lawbook?
Dutch ‘smartshops’ that sell magic mushrooms and other legal mind-altering substances are taking this to court. For updates on this matter you can follow Dutch blog Red De Paddo (Save The Shroom).
Recently a Christian Democrat politician called for the closing of all coffeeshops in Holland and illegalizing cannabis. In a follow-up poll, Dutch citizens expressed their opinions about the Dutch policy regarding drugs. 36% want coffeeshops illegalized, but 34% wants to see them completely legalized. Coffeeshops in Holland are currently in a grey area, more can be read about this in the article below or on Wikipedia. In short the sale of softdrugs is legal in Holland, but supplying coffeeshops of them is not.
Last year I wrote about the pending mushroom ban in several articles, one of which is reposted below, the others can be found via these links:
- Dutch minister of health to ban “magic mushrooms” (October 10, 2007)
- Saving the Shroom (October 16, 2007)
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Below a repost of my article “Dutch government to ban cultural identity“. (more…)
