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juju
Stranger
Registered: 10/17/08
Posts: 94
Last seen: 14 years, 10 months
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Re: Magic mushrooms banned from December [NL] [Re: ExplosiveMango]
#9222616 - 11/11/08 05:23 AM (15 years, 4 months ago) |
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Uh...yea...I know. That was my point. I'm not trying to legitimize what they do, I agree that it's fucked. I'm just saying that from the perspective of a government, someone whose only purpose is to gain authoritarian control as you put it, over people, that option is the logical one. It sucks that they feel the need to, but it makes sense based on their warped world view, and the only way a government will start to make sense is when it stops existing.
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LobsterSauce
Registered: 11/09/08
Posts: 19,884
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Re: Magic mushrooms banned from December [NL] [Re: ExplosiveMango]
#9223253 - 11/11/08 10:20 AM (15 years, 4 months ago) |
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It's just ridiculous mushies became illegal after one person died as a result of their own stupidity after taking them.Alcohol kills thousands worldwide each year and the govenments response?Increase the tax.Which does wonders for their shares in the alcohol industry.Ah good ol injustice
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veggie
Registered: 07/25/04
Posts: 17,504
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Re: Dutch ban magic mushrooms [NL] [Re: veggie]
#9241251 - 11/13/08 10:44 PM (15 years, 4 months ago) |
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Dutch mushroom ban leaves grower bitter November 14, 2008 - AFP
TIEL, Netherlands - Freddy Schaap, a grower of hallucinogenic mushrooms, is bitter about having to lay off half his staff on account of a Dutch government ban on his psychedelic produce.
"I will have to dismiss at least half of my 16 employees" when the ban on cultivating and selling the so-called magic mushrooms enters into force on Dec. 1, Schaap told AFP on his farm in Tiel in the central Netherlands.
McSmart, the business he created in 2000, produces some 25 tonnes a year of the substance known fondly by users as "shrooms" and in the Netherlands as "paddos."
"The ban makes no sense," protests the 36-year-old entrepreneur, saying he felt angry and deceived.
Declining to detail his turnover, Schaap deplores the "hundreds of thousands of euros" he had invested in the fresh mushroom industry, which unlike the already banned dried variety has thus far been traded freely in the Netherlands.
"I've been set back 10 years. I've lost everything," said Schaap.
In vast sheds among lush, green agricultural fields, McSmart cultivates different types of hallucinogenic mushrooms from the spore phase right through to their packaging in 30-gram plastic punnets.
After being cultivated in laboratories, the mushrooms are grown to adulthood in the half-dark on a bed of compost, straw and fertilizer.
They grow so fast that sometimes McSmart staff have to harvest more than once a day, after which the fungi are immediately packaged for consumption and shipped off to specialized Dutch vending points known as "smart shops" where a punnet containing two doses is sold for about 12 euros.
According to industry association VLOS, there are six growers in the Netherlands, 180 smart shops and a few hundred employees in an industry with an annual turnover of 15 to 20 million euros.
Announcing the ban this week, health minister Ab Klink said the consumption of paddos "can lead to unpredictable and risky behaviour."
Authorities drew up a list of 186 species of mushrooms whose sale will be banned in future. More are expected to follow later.
This may have been easier to accept, said Schaap, "had there been a good reason for the ban, like for cigarettes that kill thousands of people every year".
He claimed that mushrooms have never been proved to be harmful, and proclaims pride in the product of which he was a keen consumer when younger.
"The use of mushrooms gives you insight, it should be part of growing up. It is a nice experience, friendly. People experience it positively - it is something you should do two or three times in your life."
He blames the ban on posturing by political parties, adding: "It will simply pave the way for illegal trade without any control or guarantee of quality".
According to Amsterdam health authorities, more than 90 per cent of the 1.5- to two million doses of mushrooms consumed annually are sold to foreign tourists.
A quarter of smart shops are found in the Dutch capital.
The death in March last year of a French teenager who had taken mushrooms before jumping to her death from an Amsterdam bridge, reignited the debate over the hallucinogenic fungus.
Though no link had been established between the product and the girl's death, it led a majority of MPs to call for a ban.
VLOS has announced that it would seek compensation for its members, like Schaap, from Dutch courts.
"We will try to stay afloat a few months longer by producing those hallucinogenic mushrooms which are not yet on the government list, but that will not save my business," said Schaap.
There has been a heated national debate in recent weeks about the Netherlands' famously liberal drugs laws, as more and more MPs seek a reconsideration of the tolerant approach to so-called soft drugs like marijuana.
There have also been calls for the closure of the famous Dutch coffee shops where marijuana is sold.
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Brainiac
Rogue Scientist
Registered: 04/29/06
Posts: 13,259
Loc: 與您的女朋
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Re: Dutch ban magic mushrooms [NL] [Re: veggie]
#9241275 - 11/13/08 10:49 PM (15 years, 4 months ago) |
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I bet as soon as the tourists stop coming, they will change....
-------------------- Fair is Fair
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veggie
Registered: 07/25/04
Posts: 17,504
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Re: Dutch ban magic mushrooms [NL] [Re: veggie]
#9327014 - 11/28/08 12:26 PM (15 years, 3 months ago) |
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Dutch "magic mushroom" vendors lose court bid against ban November 28, 2008 - AFP
THE HAGUE (AFP) — "Magic mushrooms" will be banned in the Netherlands from next week after a court ruling Friday, in the latest sign of a hardening stance on recreational drug use by the traditionally liberal Dutch.
The ban will be in place from Monday after the district court in The Hague rejected a petition by a body representing vendors of the hallucinogenic fungi to halt a health ministry ban on their cultivation and sale.
The ruling comes days after authorities ordered dozens of Amsterdam's famous cannabis-selling coffee shops to close and two other municipalities announced they would close down all their cannabis cafes from February.
"This is bad news for us," Paul van Oyen, a spokesman for the vendors' association VLOS told AFP after the verdict. "We are highly disappointed."
The district court dismissed the VLOS's petition for an urgent interdict against the ban as groundless and unfair.
The ban, introduced by Health Minister Ab Klink and already passed by lawmakers, will now come into force on December 1.
The legislation forbids both the cultivation and sale of fresh hallucinogenic mushrooms, which grow naturally in the wild in several areas.
A total of 186 species of "shrooms" or "paddos" will become illegal from Monday, with more expected to follow later. The dried variety has been illegal in the country for several years.
Klink believes consumption of the fungi, sold in the Netherlands in so-called smart shops, "can lead to unpredictable and risky behaviour".
His ban follows the death in March last year of a French teenager who had taken mushrooms before jumping to her death from an Amsterdam bridge, reigniting a national debate over tolerance of the substance.
But Jaap Jamin of the Jellinek addiction prevention institute said the prohibition made no sense.
"We are not necessarily for the use of paddos, but we are against its banning," he told AFP.
The move would merely force the trade underground where it could no longer be regulated, said Jamin.
"And one can imagine a situation in which people who want it will merely go and pick mushrooms themselves at the risk of consuming poisonous types."
According to Amsterdam health services, where a quarter of the country's smart shops are to be found, more than 90 percent of the 1.5 million to two million doses consumed every year are bought by foreign tourists.
VLOS says there are six growers in the Netherlands, 180 smart shops, and a few hundred employees in an industry with an annual turnover of 15-20 million euros.
Several political parties have become more critical of the Netherlands' traditionally liberal approach on issues such as drugs and prostitution which is seen as a draw for sex tourists.
The Netherlands decriminalised the consumption and possession of under five grams of cannabis in 1976. Its cultivation, however, remains illegal.
The Netherlands hosts a total of 702 so-called coffee shops -- establishments with special licences to sell cannabis.
However the Mayor of Amsterdam said last week he would reluctantly close 43 in his city in accordance with a new law banning cannabis-selling coffee shops situated within a 250-metre (820-feet) radius of schools.
Last week, the southern Dutch city of Maastricht incurred the ire of nearby Belgian towns by opting to move its seven coffee shops closer to the border to dilute the nuisance it claims is caused by drug tourism.
And Roosendaal and Bergen-op-Zoom, two other southern Dutch municipalities close to the Belgian border, have announced they will close their coffee shops from February 1 next year.
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SuperD
Cacti junky
Registered: 10/05/03
Posts: 6,648
Loc: The bridgesii bridge
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Re: Dutch ban magic mushrooms [NL] [Re: veggie]
#9327396 - 11/28/08 01:55 PM (15 years, 3 months ago) |
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-------------------- D Manoa said: I need to stop spending all my money on plants and take up a cheaper hobby, like heroin. Looking for Rauhocereus riosaniensis seeds or live specimen(s), me if you have any for trade
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veggie
Registered: 07/25/04
Posts: 17,504
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Re: Dutch ban magic mushrooms [NL] [Re: veggie]
#9342366 - 12/01/08 06:08 AM (15 years, 3 months ago) |
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Mushroom ban now in effect as of today December 1, 2008 - RadioNetherlands.nl
A Dutch law banning the possession and sale of "magic mushrooms" has come into force.
The Dutch parliament called for the ban after a 17-year-old French girl who had allegedly taken magic mushrooms jumped off a building and died last year. Until now there had been no restriction on the sale of the drug, which, being a natural product, was only subject to the same regulations as fruit and vegetables.
Details of the regulation are being made public on Monday by the public prosecutor's office. It is still unclear who will enforce the new rules, and what legal sanctions offenders will face.
The countrywide association of Netherlands Municipalities, VNG, says the police are lacking the capacity to take on this additional task. VNG says it's the responsibility of the Food and Consumer Product Safety Authority.
But this has become legally impossible because the mushrooms now fall under the remit of the so-called Opium Law, where it has been added to the list of illegal substances.
Opponents say it will make no difference The new rules were proposed by Christian Democrat Health Minister Ab Klink. With the law in force, the possession and cultivation of hallucinogenic mushrooms has become illegal.
Opponents say that the law was introduced without due care, and that it will fail to make any difference. Sellers of the hallucinogenic mushrooms claim it has never been proven that the fungi were to blame for the fatal incident with the French girl.
Figures* from the Amsterdam health service show that over a two-year period, only 70 out of 200,000 mushroom-munching tourists needed medical help.
* Research in the Netherlands has shown that the use of psychedelic mushrooms does not create a physical addiction, nor a state of mental dependency on the drug. There is a small risk of acute poisoning if the safe dose of 15 grammes is exceeded.
The risk can be reduced by using the drug in a quiet, safe environment. Serious problems, however, are caused by using the mushrooms in combination with other drugs, including alcohol. In the two years prior to 2007, the Amsterdam health service had to provide medical assistance or ambulance support to 70 mushroom users, 63 of whom were young foreign tourists. An estimated 200,000 people in the Netherlands used the drug over that period. (Data from a 2007 report by the Dutch National Institute of Public Health and the Environment, RIVM)
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TurricaN
Grasshopper
Registered: 03/17/05
Posts: 823
Loc: Amersfoort, Netherlands
Last seen: 9 months, 29 days
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Re: Dutch ban magic mushrooms [NL] [Re: veggie]
#9344849 - 12/01/08 03:17 PM (15 years, 3 months ago) |
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The grow-kits remain legal (they aren't mushrooms), as do certain species which were not yet added to the list of banned mushrooms.
Yes, the government is too fucking stupid to implement a simple law to ban a drug.
As for me, I've bought and dried a fair quantity of Copelandia Cyanescans to last for a while. Yes, nice one CDA, you've made me into a criminal and an enemy, and I will use all necessary force against you to defend my right to consume any substance as I see fit, because you have absolutely no right to make this decision for me.
That is all.
*TurricaN is Looking forward to his mushroom trip in two weeks!
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veggie
Registered: 07/25/04
Posts: 17,504
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Re: Dutch ban magic mushrooms [NL] [Re: veggie]
#9345307 - 12/01/08 04:30 PM (15 years, 3 months ago) |
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Amsterdam Ignores Magic Mushrooms Ban December 1, 2008 - Reuters
THE HAGUE - Amsterdam's Mayor Job Cohen is not planning for now to implement the ban on hallucinogenic mushrooms.
From Monday (1 December), the sale of 'magic mushrooms' has been banned. Amsterdam is not however planning to uphold Health Minister Ab Klink's ban, because there are "currently too many uncertainties about how this should be done," said Cohen after leading talks with the police and Public Prosecutor's Office (OM).
Labour (PvdA) party member Cohen only received a letter from the health ministry 10 days ago, saying the OM and police would be charged with enforcement. In the talks, the police and OM have however indicated that they would rather not make any capacity available, according to a municipal spokesman.
Cohen suggests giving the Food and Non-food Authority (VWA) a role in enforcement, as with the smoking ban that came into force in the hospitality sector on 1 July. But cafes actually say the VWA already has too little capacity to check on them, and dissident cafes are often not fined if they allow smoking.
Amsterdam had around 20 'smart shops' with hallucinogenic mushrooms for sale on 30 November. In reality, there are most likely many more, as many souvenir shops also sell them.
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