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Written by Parool
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Tuesday, 11 September 2007 00:00 |
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 Mayor Job Cohen of Amsterdam wants people that are about to buy magic mushrooms for the first time in their life to take three days to think their purchase through. Within this term the purchaser can gather information on the hallucinating mushrooms so he can make ‘a more conscious choice’.
This is what the mayor wrote to Dutch minister Ab Klink of Public Health, Well-being and Sports yesterday. A pass-system must protect the mushroom-user against ‘unreasonable impulse buying.’ People who visit a smartshop for the first time receive, by flashing their identity card, a special dated mushroom-pass. At the same time oral information and folders are given. Only three days later the freshman can proceed with his actual purchase by showing the pass again.
Cohen wrote his proposal in reaction to a couple serious accidents with magic mushrooms - all of them happened in Amsterdam and there was a high number of young foreign tourists involved. Therefore, the unreasonable use of mushrooms is mainly a problem of the capital, so the mayor reasons. In his letter he pleads thus for a local treatment instead of the national prohibition that is considered at the moment. Following the example of cities such as Venlo and Maastricht he wants to bind all smartshops to a (local) license.
Cohen's pleading connects seamlessly with the vision of The National Smartshop Consultation Association (VLOS) that called the pass system ‘a creative and intelligent solution’ for a problem which is ‘only present in Amsterdam.’
Letter (in Dutch) to minister Ab Klink
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