Magic mushroom shops want age limit
23 July 2007
AMSTERDAM – Shops selling magic mushrooms are calling for an age limit of 18 years. In consultation with the municipality of Amsterdam and the ministry of health care the shop owners themselves want to impose the age limit, according to the Vereniging Landelijk Overleg Smartshops (VLOS) (the Association of National Smart Shops) on Monday. Twenty-five Amsterdam smart shops are affiliated to this organisation.
Health Minister Ab Klink said he wanted to look into an age limit for the sale of hallucinogenic mushrooms last month. The past three years has seen a considerable increase in the number of magic mushroom incidents in the centre of Amsterdam, whereby the ambulance was called out, in particular to rush young tourists who got ill to hospital.
Source: http://www.expatica.com/actual/article. ... y_id=42192
Magic mushroom shops want age limit
All age limits previously were at the discretion of the smart shop owner and staff. There are zero laws on the books concerning the sale of wet mushrooms. Anyone of any age can buy them technically speaking. Smart shops don't card, but will tell you to go away if you look really underage. With this new policy smartshops in amsterdam will start carding. I think this is a wise policy, but I don't really see anything wrong with knowledgeable 16-17 year old dutch kids tripping. The problem is foreign tourists coming to the netherlands who know absolutely nothing about psychedelics and then proceed to eat shrooms. This was also the determination of the government research on mushrooms.
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Kaiser Saucy
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- Joined: Tue 14th Nov 2006 01:31 am
- Location: Britain
Fair enough
The one thing they cant control is people that have no clue about psychedelics just deciding to do shrooms because they are in the dam, and they can. People with zero idea about the importance of set and setting, who can end up mixing them with all sorts of other crap, not be in the right mindset, & happen to be wandering round crowded streets or in a packed bar, ie not the best settings for people with no experience.
I think you have to be pretty daft to do a substance without finding out all you can about it. These idiots who get messed up give mushrooms a bad name & put their availability at risk for the rest of us who give them the respect they deserve.
The one thing they cant control is people that have no clue about psychedelics just deciding to do shrooms because they are in the dam, and they can. People with zero idea about the importance of set and setting, who can end up mixing them with all sorts of other crap, not be in the right mindset, & happen to be wandering round crowded streets or in a packed bar, ie not the best settings for people with no experience.
I think you have to be pretty daft to do a substance without finding out all you can about it. These idiots who get messed up give mushrooms a bad name & put their availability at risk for the rest of us who give them the respect they deserve.
We all know kids will do whatever they're determined to do, irrespective of laws.
So any law that discourages U18's from subjecting their developing brains/minds to to the abuse of strong mind altering substances is sound IMO.
Dutch teens might mature faster than Aussie teens, but in my experience, older teenages generally haven't yet grasped the finer points of life, like cause and effect, actions and consequences.
There is also the obvious concerns for their well being and safety from, cars, bikes, trains, canals, not to mention predators.
So any law that discourages U18's from subjecting their developing brains/minds to to the abuse of strong mind altering substances is sound IMO.
Dutch teens might mature faster than Aussie teens, but in my experience, older teenages generally haven't yet grasped the finer points of life, like cause and effect, actions and consequences.
There is also the obvious concerns for their well being and safety from, cars, bikes, trains, canals, not to mention predators.
"I don't care to belong to any club that will have me as a member" - Groucho Marx
I guess I mostly have to agree, but though I do have some concerns about 16-17 year olds taking Mushrooms especially foreign tourists. I do however think that information is key. Like don't drink alcohol with mushrooms, and don't take them if you tend to be depressed are having a difficult time in your relationships, generally can't control your emotions etc. Education leads people to take them as directed like chose the right strength level, take 1/2 wait for :30-1 hour to take the rest, have someone with you that does not take them, etc. All the stuff a good smartshops tells you.
On the other hand when a tourist ( I am one of them, but I educate myself before taking anything) takes a dose of Hawaiian Mushrooms when depressed while taking the entire box at once and drinking 10 Heineken beers and getting so screwed up that they have to have the Ambulance come. This latter story is the reason(s) that Mushrooms face the ban. These young foreign tourists don't have a clue and just end up f-up their trip and the Media blows these stories out of proportion. I read reports on how many Ambulace runs in Amsterdam there were for Mushrooms Vs. Alcohol. Reports are Ambulance call-outs rose from 70 in 2005 to 128 last year. However The number of Ambulance runs for alcohol reasons were 3-4 times that and some reports are much higher as sometimes they have mixed so many things its hard to really know. Kaiser Saucy's post is absolutely right.
On the other hand when a tourist ( I am one of them, but I educate myself before taking anything) takes a dose of Hawaiian Mushrooms when depressed while taking the entire box at once and drinking 10 Heineken beers and getting so screwed up that they have to have the Ambulance come. This latter story is the reason(s) that Mushrooms face the ban. These young foreign tourists don't have a clue and just end up f-up their trip and the Media blows these stories out of proportion. I read reports on how many Ambulace runs in Amsterdam there were for Mushrooms Vs. Alcohol. Reports are Ambulance call-outs rose from 70 in 2005 to 128 last year. However The number of Ambulance runs for alcohol reasons were 3-4 times that and some reports are much higher as sometimes they have mixed so many things its hard to really know. Kaiser Saucy's post is absolutely right.
thomaskmfdm wrote:All age limits previously were at the discretion of the smart shop owner and staff. There are zero laws on the books concerning the sale of wet mushrooms. Anyone of any age can buy them technically speaking. Smart shops don't card, but will tell you to go away if you look really underage. With this new policy smartshops in amsterdam will start carding. I think this is a wise policy, but I don't really see anything wrong with knowledgeable 16-17 year old dutch kids tripping. The problem is foreign tourists coming to the netherlands who know absolutely nothing about psychedelics and then proceed to eat shrooms. This was also the determination of the government research on mushrooms.