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Comment by htkibar | Hacker News Reader

In all fairness, it isn't like we want people to come as tourists here to smoke weed or something so should be fine no?

For anyone else wanting to know more about the Dutch policy on this: https://www.government.nl/topics/drugs/toleration-policy-reg...

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Well, it's not about that. It's that one of the reasons the Netherlands never legalized is that the rest of Europe didn't. So we were afraid that we'd become a place where international criminals come to produce massive amounts of weed legally to then export it illegally. When countries surrounding us start legalizing, we have no reason not to.

Since growing weed is purely done by criminals right now, we're also afraid to legalize because legal weed farms might get issues with criminal involvement or threat because the criminals lose a huge income source. If we don't legalize however when Germany does, we'll then get a bunch of trafficking from Germany to the Netherlands.

We're in a bit of a pickle and it'll be interesting to see what our Christian/Liberal/Progressive government will come up with. I expect them to just ignore it and continue by doing pretty much nothing until it's a real problem.

> Since growing weed is purely done by criminals right now, we're also afraid to legalize because legal weed farms might get issues with criminal involvement or threat because the criminals lose a huge income source. If we don't legalize however when Germany does, we'll then get a bunch of trafficking from Germany to the Netherlands.

Oregon legalized weed and this hasn't been a huge problem. But if people fear it is, the solution to this is simple. Make it easy to become a legal grower.

I'm in Oregon as well. There have been many news stories in Southern Oregon about the large cartel operations that are bigger than before legalization, because now they more or less blend in with the legal growers. They also involved trafficked humans to work there with passports withheld. Some of the increase has been attributed to California's drought, so they're moving north to greener pastures, so to speak. The illegal growing is more than twice as much as licensed growing. Twice. I don't know how you can say there is no problem.

> The $2.78 billion in illegal marijuana found in Southern Oregon dwarfs the nearly $1.2 billion in legal marijuana sold at shops in the entire state in 2021.

> Behind the scenes, immigrant workers may face threats of violent retaliation against their relatives in Mexico if they complain about living and working conditions at illegal sites, or the withholding of wages.

> “The cartels will kill their family back in Mexico. They know there is a realistic likelihood that would happen,” Barden said.

https://www.mailtribune.com/top-stories/2022/01/22/pot-busts...

> “We’ve heard of the threat of harm to your family if you don’t go with us”, Daniel said. “And then they are transported up to the location. From what we are understanding, these workers are not paid until the end of the year when the shipment goes out and the money is brought in. There’s not like a weekly payroll going on here.”

> Sixteen other state and federal agencies joined the Josephine County Sheriff’s department in the raid, including the Department of Homeland Security. The operation included more than 1,300 acres of property as well as 200 workers.

> Officials found workers living in squalid conditions, which included sleeping on cardboard mats or inside tends. Workers denying that they had been trafficked, Daniel said. The Department of Homeland Security offered victim services to the workers, but all turned them down, according to Daniel. This could be for several reasons, including fear of their employers or immigration authorities.

https://www.oregonlive.com/marijuana/2021/08/southern-oregon...

> Sergeant Cliff Barden, of the Oregon State Police Basin Interagency Narcotics Enforcement Team (BINET), said illegal grows in Klamath County are clearly linked to drug cartels. He said the cartel’s strategy in the area is to overwhelm local agencies and resources with the sheer volume of production, ensuring that much of the operation will go unnoticed and ultimate generating immense profits.

> “They are intentionally trying to overwhelm the system,” Barden said. “And that is why it is so difficult.”

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/clear-links-between-illega...

Why is this the case though?

Take coffee for instance, it's widely grown in South America--is most of the production run by cartels?

Or is it just that cannabis is a high-value crop, and it's easier to move the produce around the USA from within, rather than having to smuggle it over the border?

And if cannabis is a high-value crop, is it because not all states have 'legalised' it?

What if the whole world legalised cannabis, would it become like coffee?

waaay back hemp was grown for fiber. Hemp for THC can be grown just as cheaply as hemp for fiber. With no meddling it would be very very cheap - $2 a pound or less. The selected sterile hybrid female plants are smaller than the old hemp used as rope = lower yield, so it will not be as cheap as hemp fiber = $250 per ton. $1 a pound is $2000 per ton, so it will be in that range if totally unregulated.

Yes, it's because there is a large black market in states that haven't legalized it and in a lot of cases, they're selling it cheaper than the stores where it's legal. The state sanctioned growers all have to have their products tested in labs for purity, pesticides as well as percentage of THC/CBD. The stores (separate entity) also have heavy regulations and security requirements as these are strictly cash businesses (since it's still federally illegal, you can't use federally regulated banks, or credit cards). It's expensive to do so. There is also quite a high state tax on cannabis sales. Illegal growers don't have any of that. It's also a lot simpler to cross state lines than international borders as most states don't have border checks. I know California does to check if you have fruit on board (large agricultural state trying to prevent various pests/diseases), but out of hundreds of trips across the border we were only actually inspected once and that was likely because we were in a camper so they couldn't just look in the window and see.

As a different example, there are "dry towns" where alcohol sales are illegal. The bordering bars where it is legal do very well.

> we were afraid that we'd become a place where international criminals come to produce massive amounts of weed legally to then export it illegally

I remember a few years back, someone in the Dutch police claimed the Netherlands was on its way to becoming a narco-state [1].

I'm ignorant about the domestic issues there, so correct me, but it seems like the legality of drugs is a separate issue to the control of organised crime in the country.

[1] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-50821542

Drugs earn criminals literally billions of euro every year. Money corrupts. Whether it's in Mexico or the Netherlands.

I think the closest analogy for Americans is what happened during prohibition.

NL is still a central hub for drug traffic. This is a consequence of the NL ports being very efficient. Belgium and Spain are other entry points for cocaine. But there have also been some high profile arrests of drug lords in the NL, such as the arrest of Tse Chi Lop, the head of the Sam Gor syndicate, responsible for a $8bn per year meth trade.

Here's a 70 page report only on cocaine trade.

https://border-security-report.com/the-cocaine-pipeline-to-e...

Quick question for our Dutch neighbors: why not?

I never understood why it is exactly that The Netherlands were kind of against the drug tourism. I mean, I'm sure your average pot head tourist is not that much trouble and leaves quite a bit of money, no?

I studied in The Netherlands and always thought I'd be proud as a country to be that "progressive" in a sense -- especially once it became clear that other countries were following.

Countries with loads of tourists have loads of trouble with them. Those problems are amplified when you’re flooded with college kids who are away from home for the first time and getting high for only the first or second time of their life.

I guess there was enough trouble that some people thought it was worth trying to cut back on. Money isn’t everything

The Dutch also have an incredibly advanced information/agriculture/tech/corp economy. I'm no expert on this but I'm pretty sure that the money from the tourism might not be as much to the Dutch as we would like to think.

Amsterdam has lots of issues with tourists that fly in, spend a few days, cause a lot of problems, do a lot of drugs, visit one or two high profile tourist destianations (which puts an oversized burden on these few places), and then fly out.

Instead Amsterdam wants to court tourists who fly in, spend a week or two, go to many tourist destinations, spend a bit more money at many locations. It spreads it around the city/country, does less wear and tear to a few places, and makes the locals lives much nicer.

Personally, in 2010 I definitely walked across 8 lanes of traffic the wrong way on my first day in town… Must have been an actual highway. I have a vivid memory of cars revving their engine at me.

In Canada the crossing signs with a countdown display how much time you have left to cross not how long the wait will be.

This is a good FYI, thanks.

It's a bit of a mixed bag, but usually the tourists that visit for drugs aren't the ones that spend money on good food, hotels and museums. This is a broad generalization, I know, but may just come for the weed, get hella stoned, drink too much and cause issues in the city. British stag parties are the worst example of this. These groups treat Amsterdam more like a theme park than a city... But that's just Amsterdam.

A lot of the drug tourism isn't the stuff like that, that you're probably thinking about. A lot of it happens in border towns and is essentially trafficking by criminals. They come to the Netherlands, buy quite a bit of weed and go back to their home countries to sell it. In those countries it's illegal, hence the criminal part. These are not the types of people we like to have visiting our country.

> I'm sure your average pot head tourist is not that much trouble and leaves quite a bit of money, no?

aha, they literally only come for weed and prostitutes, let's say it doesn't attract the most well behaved people in the world. Imagine the typical German or English 20 something years old tourist in Mallorca but instead of being drunk they're stoned.

Low travel cost + mass tourism + young adults + drugs = problems. You can travel there for 70 euros back and forth from any major city in Europe

It's limited to very specific streets but these streets are hell on earth, I don't even know why people go there anymore: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/02/world/europe/amsterdam-to...

>Imagine the typical German or English 20 something years old tourist in Mallorca but instead of being drunk they're stoned.

So they're sitting in cafes eating fried food? What exactly do you think stoned people do lol

Fall into canals; move in flocks between narrow city centre streets making a lot of noise; bike around with disregard to common traffic rules.

I'm not Dutch and I really enjoy going to Amsterdam, have friends living there, etc. From what I gather those are the main complaints, just annoyances and not really major problems.

Financing criminals when these same tourists go searching for other drugs, that's a real issue.

Disclaimer: I don't believe that weed is a gateway drug and I'm very pro decriminalisation of drugs and legalisation of recreational cannabis.

> Fall into canals; move in flocks between narrow city centre streets making a lot of noise; bike around with disregard to common traffic rules.

Sounds like you're describing the behavior of people who've had too much to drink. Alcohol is already legal.

Yes, but people can stay home and do that, they don't have to come to Amsterdam.

Be loud at all time of the day/night, litter, piss on walls/cars, etc.

> What exactly do you think stoned people do lol

There are many subsets of stoners, just like a guy drinking half a bottle of red wine at every dinner isn't the same type of alcoholic as the guy emptying a vodka bottle everyday by noon.

I used many drugs, with many people, some people are just trash, sober or drugged, drugs don't transform them into well behaved and civilised people

> What exactly do you think stoned people do lol

What kind of people travel hundreds of kilometers for a joint sand some titties behind a window ? ...

I never understood why it is exactly that The Netherlands were kind of against the drug tourism.

It's a subset of the problem of overtourism in general.

I mean, I'm sure your average pot head tourist is not that much trouble and leaves quite a bit of money, no?

Actually they don't, and that's precisely the problem. They come over on EasyJet, check into a shitty hostel, score some weed, buy a shawarma (and maybe some fries), oggle the working professionals in the red light district for a bit, and then leave a few days later.

This is a stereotype of course and not 100 percent true -- but it also probably intersects about 60 percent with the spending profile of the average weed tourist. On average not usually the type to visit anything other than the most obvious tourist destinations, or patronize any of the better restaurants, or avail themselves to any of the amazingly cool stuff that city has to offer.

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