So the Weed pass thing? and your thoughts?

[Uncle Ron]

Thx wietroker for keeping the masses informed...
...for a select few, please read my comments on the previous page.
Patience is a virtue, so lets all be virtuous................. naaaaahhhhh...
Happy trails mofos...
...

[spidergawd]

Just announced in parliament:
http://www.telegraaf.nl/binnenland/2109 ... hop__.html

Here's the crap translation:

Wietpas Abolished

Municipality may approach coffeeshop self filling

THE HAGUE -
Municipalities may fix their policy on coffee shops and drug nuisance will determine. Writes Minister Ivo Opstelten Monday in a letter to the Lower House. For the whole country will be that visitors to coffeeshops must prove that they live in the Netherlands, but municipalities may decide when they will maintain that policy.


Opstelten confident that together with local law enforcement to make good plans to combat nuisance. "At the local level, it is best to understand what measures are effective," said Opstelten.
Municipalities can the minister himself priorities. For example, they first coffee shops close or coffee shops away from schools places before they go check coffee shops serve only people living in the Netherlands.
Tourists
It offers large cities with many tourists, like Amsterdam, still some space. The capital would such other priorities, so that tourists some time in the coffee shops welcome. Opstelten did not mention any date on which the municipalities have to enforce the rules appearance.
Visitors can coffeeshops with their identity card or residence permit, together with an extract from the municipal personal records prove that they live in the Netherlands. Incidentally, the municipalities also free to continue with the 'wietpas', which on Monday is no longer required in the south of the country.
Nuisance
The registration of customers of coffee shops in Opstelten no longer necessary because the nuisance is reduced. At the same time he wants Dutch who had difficulty with the registration and therefore their drugs bought on the street, back to the coffee shop lure.
Opstelten advises municipalities for the new year to make a plan, because the new rules will apply. He stressed that his policy is not a free ticket to do nothing. "I must see that there is tackled seriously," says Opstelten.
Strong weed
Minister Opstelten expects further "fast" with rules that are strong marijuana and hashish in coffeeshops must repel. This year is expected to no longer work, he thinks.
VVD and PvdA spoke the coalition agreed that the content of active substance in cannabis to a ceiling to be bound. Under the new rules there should be no more than 15 percent THC in cannabis sit. "Hard drugs do not belong in the coffee shop at home," said the minister.

Long and short of it is that they still want it to be only locals and no tourists but ultimately councils can decide when and how to implement. Clearly a climbdown from the government and won't be forcing anything.

I will be interested to see what happens in the south of Holland. I hope Den Bosch and Eindhoven abolish the WP at least.

[Marco]

Here we go again


Dutch to classify super strong marijuana alongside heroin

Tuesday 20 November 2012

The government is planning to classify strong strains of marijuana and cannabis as a Class A drug alongside heroin and cocaine, justice minister Ivo Opstelten told parliament in briefing on Monday.

‘Hard drugs have no place in the coffee shops and in the future they will only be able to offer cannabis with a THC level of below 15%,’ the minister said. THC is the active ingredient in marijuana.

The Netherlands has some 500 cannabis cafes, known as coffee shops, where people can buy up to five grammes of the drug for their personal use.

Opstelten did not say when the THC restriction is to be introduced but according to RTL news, it is unlikely to be this year.

Dangerous

Last year a report for the government said marijuana with more than 15% THC is so dangerous it should be classed alongside heroin and cocaine.

Experts say the THC content of Dutch-grown marijuana is between 15% and 18%. Some 75% of the marijuana sold in the country's cannabis cafes is grown in the Netherlands.

Mark Josemans, spokesman for the Maastricht coffee shop owners association, said the minister is ‘doing all he can to make the illegal circuit as big as possible’.

‘Weak weed in the coffee shops, strong weed on the streets – then the choice is pretty clear,’ he told the Volkskrant. Marijuana with a higher volume of THC is not more dangerous to health, he said. ‘A user smokes less, just as people don’t drink rum out of a beer glass.’

Wietpas

Opstelten also gave more details of the cabinet’s plans to immediately drop the controversial membership scheme – or wietpas - for coffee shops, which was introduced in the south of the country on May 1.

While coffee shops will only be open to people with official documents which show they live in the Netherlands, it will be up to local authorities to decide how to introduce the new rules, he said.

Councils, police and justice ministry officials will draw up ‘good plans’ to counteract drugs nuisance, Opstelten said. ‘The best insights into which measures are effective are found at a local level,’ he said.

Councils should draw up their approach by the new year when the rules come into effect. ‘I want to see serious action,’ Opstelten said. ‘Councils will be able to draw up their own supervisory policy but the rules must eventually be phased in.'

Amsterdam

At the beginning of this month, Amsterdam’s mayor Eberhard van der Laan told the Volkskrant newspaper tourists can continue to use Amsterdam’s 220 cannabis cafes, even if they are not resident in the Netherlands.

At least 1.5 million of the city’s seven million visitors a year go to a coffee shop – the name for licenced cafes where small quantities of marijuana can be sold for personal use.

[mrdcotor]

[

Dutch to classify super strong marijuana alongside heroin

Sounds like Opstelten trying to save his face. Good luck enforcing this, Minister. Cannabis is not a liquor: you cant change the alcool rating adding alcool or water. thc% change from an harvest to another.

[worldcitizen1723]

[

Dutch to classify super strong marijuana alongside heroin

Sounds like Opstelten trying to save his face. Good luck enforcing this, Minister. Cannabis is not a liquor: you cant change the alcool rating adding alcool or water. thc% change from an harvest to another.

Yeah. Ignorance always creates grand solutions!
This too will fade away.

[Uncle Ron]

Sounds like Opstelten trying to save his face. Good luck enforcing this, Minister. Cannabis is not a liquor: you cant change the alcool rating adding alcool or water. thc% change from an harvest to another.

Yeah. Ignorance always creates grand solutions!
This too will fade away.

More like actions of desperation for a lost cause...

mrdoctor, although you are correct that THC % does change from one harvest to another, this is more accurate for plants from seed than from clone.
If consecutive harvests were from the same mother, the difference would be negligible, and testable to a standard. Just something to think about...
Happiness is no weed pass...

[Stanky Danky]

If consecutive harvests were from the same mother, the difference would be negligible, and testable to a standard.

This is true if the plant is harvested at the same time for those consecutive harvests, but if the grower lets the plants go longer the trichs go amber and the THC degrades into CBD's and CBN's. Harvesting early will also result in lower THC.

[Uncle Ron]

If consecutive harvests were from the same mother, the difference would be negligible, and testable to a standard.

This is true if the plant is harvested at the same time for those consecutive harvests, but if the grower lets the plants go longer the trichs go amber and the THC degrades into CBD's and CBN's. Harvesting early will also result in lower THC.

+1
... and then there's that.

...

[treetop]

[

Dutch to classify super strong marijuana alongside heroin

Sounds like Opstelten trying to save his face. Good luck enforcing this, Minister. Cannabis is not a liquor: you cant change the alcool rating adding alcool or water. thc% change from an harvest to another.

Opstelten really needs to fuck right off.

[Dave J]

There is still 1 thing I dont get and thats with all the talk and reports etc has there been any GENUINE confirmation on the tourists still being able to buy and smoke in coffeeshops or is everything else suggesting it is more a case of an interpretation of whats being suggested and said on a political level and that interpretation being assumed as being the case than an actual confirmation on a political level as such?.

[Smokey McPot]

I'm not long back from a trip over and the few budtenders that I asked all said for Amsterdam it will be business as usual.

Take that however you want, the pessimists on here will likely think that's just hearsay and conjecture on their part

I, on the other hand like to think that as business owners/employers they will be the first to know the facts and anyway what would be the point in a budtender telling you to keep booking those trips if they weren't able to use your business.. No point at all
So next years trips are already in the planning stage for me, January April and November again

[wietroker]

There is still 1 thing I dont get and thats with all the talk and reports etc has there been any GENUINE confirmation on the tourists still being able to buy and smoke in coffeeshops or is everything else suggesting it is more a case of an interpretation of whats being suggested and said on a political level and that interpretation being assumed as being the case than an actual confirmation on a political level as such?.

I'm not long back from a trip over and the few budtenders that I asked all said for Amsterdam it will be business as usual.

Take that however you want, the pessimists on here will likely think that's just hearsay and conjecture on their part

I, on the other hand like to think that as business owners/employers they will be the first to know the facts and anyway what would be the point in a budtender telling you to keep booking those trips if they weren't able to use your business.. No point at all
So next years trips are already in the planning stage for me, January April and November again

It's a done deal now, no more speculation.

Prior to Opstelten's letter to parliament earlier this week, it was all speculation and pure hope that nothing would happen and things would continue as normal (couple with fear not being shown).

But now Opstelten has said it is down to councils, the original wietpas regime has been abolished. Councils may use the wietpas if they want but not obliged to as before. Coupled with the mayor's statement even before this that he was going to block it, Amsterdam will be business as usual, that is a FACT.

If you look at the detail of the letter, they still have to timetable something for later, but we are talking years in the making.

Put it another way, newspapers all reported this as "wietpas is afgeschaft". I learned a new word for "abolished"!

[Smith2]

I don't believe in Ivo Opstelten. The silly name is just an anagram of 'poet, novelist' and he's obviously the creation of an Anglophone writer with a sense of humour.

[worldcitizen1723]

I don't believe in Ivo Opstelten. The silly name is just an anagram of 'poet, novelist' and he's obviously the creation of an Anglophone writer with a sense of humour.

+3

[Jasmeena]

news from the south - Eindhoven council haven't decided what to do yet, they may let it ride (as is) until Jan 2013.
The weedpass may be no more, but my non registered Dutch husband tried to access a coffeeshop in Eindhoven using his passport and was refused access yesterday.