Dutch "magic mushroom" vendors lose court bid against ban

[ayjay101]

Dutch "magic mushroom" vendors lose court bid against ban

Agence France-Presse

Published: Friday November 28, 2008

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.

Source: http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Dutch_magic_...court_1128.html

[mu!]

oh well, join the club eh

[MindExpansion]

Klink believes consumption of the fungi, sold in the Netherlands in so-called smart shops, "can lead to unpredictable and risky behaviour".

*cough* alcohol *cough*

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.

*cough* alcohol *cough*

Fuck the world.

[Chiral]

maybe she took the mushrooms so it would be a colorful drop with lots of tracers on the way down...seems she had it in her mind she was going to jump anyways ..may as well be trippin if ya gunna do something weird like that..I doubt the mushrooms made her do it..thats just absurd.

H.

[Re-Grifter]

maybe she took the mushrooms so it would be a colorful drop with lots of tracers on the way down

This made me sputter coffee on my keyboard ...being at once both awful, and very funny.

[PhoenixSon]

wonder what happened to all those excess shrooms?

[MindExpansion]

hehe just saw those ads for anti-drinking aimed at youth.

And their statistic is 4 australians under 25 die a week from alcohol related accidents :S (think that was it)

Peace

[woof woof woof]

bummer.......... ohhhh well.... ............ it is just a money making scheme ducht politicians came up with so to profitfrom in the current world economic sitiuation.........

holland is still making allot of $$ by sale of drugs! and they know that all too well........... holland was always about cashing in....... since the VOC times..................

If it aint Dutch it aint much.......wahahahahahha........ lol......... It's a JOKE! hmmmmm,..... tasteless joke.....FAK!!!! LOL

be well peoople

Edited December 10, 2008 by woof woof woof

[woof woof woof]

btw.......... having 4 or 5 plants is not illegal in the Netherlands! iow if for your own consumption you may have a few plants......

but of course you want to help your buddies to get high too.... so you cultivate a few more,...... many dont see a prob with that either.... hehehhe

[MORG]

Fuck me... 6 growers to supply the whole city of Amsterdam (180 smart shops).

They must be rolling in it.

[Re-Grifter]

Why does it only ever take one death to ban something (and no, i'm not stupid enough to imagine mushies where the actual cause of death in this or any other case)?...you'd think they would need a few to see a pattern...

The population of Europe is estimated to be around 500 million.....

[woof woof woof]

MORG.......... I knew some of those guys in A'dam smart business (the guys of Conscious Dreams smart shops)......... they told me that they were shipping fresh crateloads by plane to Japan.......

I also have a friend who's uncle was growing them.... he got busted though..... he said to her that gourmet shrooms were not making ends meet so he swithed to psychedelic shroomies..... he had a whole farm and was supplying the whole of Brabant / Limburg and accross the southern borders.

One thing is for sure.......the Netherlands are sooooo full of drugs!!! Never a scarcity..... thousands of ways to totally lose it on drugs in the low countries!