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veggie

Registered: 07/25/04
Posts: 17,504
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Amsterdam's drug police demand right to keep on smoking cannabis
#7802020 - 12/26/07 08:52 PM (16 years, 1 month ago) |
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Amsterdam's drug police demand right to keep on smoking cannabis December 27, 2007 - timesonline.co.uk
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.
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origami.octopus
Mycoporn fanaticin training


Registered: 11/17/07
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Re: Amsterdam's drug police demand right to keep on smoking cannabis [Re: veggie]
#7802234 - 12/26/07 10:10 PM (16 years, 1 month ago) |
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fair enough.
letum smoke pot
-------------------- I like to look at mushrooms the way most people like to look at flowers. this is an amazing game http://www.kongregate.com/games/customlogic/sprout
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THEBats
FuturePsychopharmacologist


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Re: Amsterdam's drug police demand right to keep on smoking cannabis [Re: veggie]
#7802549 - 12/26/07 11:56 PM (16 years, 1 month ago) |
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Quote:
[He has also led intense efforts to close coffee shops and so-called smart shops, which sell harder drugs such as magic mushrooms.
whoa buddy they're classified as soft drugs which is why they're tolerated lol. oh well.
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Dagnus
Bag of Flesh



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Re: Amsterdam's drug police demand right to keep on smoking cannabis [Re: THEBats]
#7802585 - 12/27/07 12:15 AM (16 years, 1 month ago) |
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"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”."
Where the fuck does transparency fit into those words???
And why the hell is Amsterdam moving backwards!?
-------------------- Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who matter don't mind and those who mind don't matter -Dr. Seuss
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LoWgRoW
Strange



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Re: Amsterdam's drug police demand right to keep on smoking cannabis [Re: Dagnus]
#7803125 - 12/27/07 07:47 AM (16 years, 1 month ago) |
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"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”."
The biggest delinquents I know in NY are cops! The seem to have the worst relationships and are crooked in some sense.
LET THEM PUFF!
-------------------- Avoid negative people.
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Cannabischarlie
Resident badass


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Re: Amsterdam's drug police demand right to keep on smoking cannabis [Re: LoWgRoW]
#7803204 - 12/27/07 08:33 AM (16 years, 1 month ago) |
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There is increasing opposition to politicians who want to bring Holland up to the level of American drug enforcement. Why? because they know these policies that have been in place since the 70's WORK. Less teenagers use Marijuana in Holland than in America.
-------------------- This section of the signature line has been intentionally left blank.
we could all use a little more sunshine.
yeah, she's funny and somewhat interesting. not a beauty queen, but not bad lookin. i'd feel quite honored to fuck janine garofalo. -tiny_rabid_birds
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2FiNiTe
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Re: Amsterdam's drug police demand right to keep on smoking cannabis [Re: veggie]
#7803728 - 12/27/07 11:57 AM (16 years, 1 month ago) |
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The bureaucrats want a cut, they realize they've been missing out for a long long time. They want a cut and the coffee shops are budging.
-------------------- "Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants. We know more about war that we know about peace, more about killing that we know about living." General Omar N. Bradley
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champ
pudding pop



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Re: Amsterdam's drug police demand right to keep on smoking cannabis [Re: veggie]
#7807543 - 12/28/07 02:17 PM (16 years, 1 month ago) |
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The cops are right. Intrusions into their private life is not acceptable and I hope that their rights are preserved in this case.
Yes, Amsterdam is trying to roll back some of their progressive social and moral policies, but I think the whole Red Light District prostitution clean up is about real estate and property values more than anything else. The city council is trying to push vice out of the center, to the edges of the city which are not as valuable. Granted, the RLD is seedy, sleazy and I personally can't stand walking through there, but I would still rather have it where it has historically been for hundreds of years than to have all the Red Light window prostitutes street-walking behind Central Station or confined to illegal hidden brothels all over the city, which is what will happen.
They already kicked most of the junkies out of Red Light and now they all congregate on the Weesperstraat and the Weesperplein, fighting constantly because their weird little social order has been completely disrupted and all the fucked up junkie hierarchies have to be re-established in a new location.
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MushroomTrip
Dr. Teasy Thighs



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Re: Amsterdam's drug police demand right to keep on smoking cannabis [Re: Dagnus]
#7808151 - 12/28/07 06:03 PM (16 years, 1 month ago) |
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Quote:
Dagnus said:
And why the hell is Amsterdam moving backwards!?
Christian party
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   All this time I've loved you And never known your face All this time I've missed you And searched this human race Here is true peace Here my heart knows calm Safe in your soul Bathed in your sighs
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