Amsterdam Now Requires 4 Day Visit

Buzzkill of the week:

THE HAGUE (AFP) - A new proposal from the mayor of Amsterdam is sure to be considered a bummer by certain visitors to the Dutch city: a three-day waiting period to buy hallucinogenic mushrooms

Mayor Job Cohen wants to require the wait period to allow mushroom buyers to fully understand exactly what it is they are purchasing, ANP news agency reported Tuesday.

If...If this was separate from a more complete anti-drug push back in the Netherlands, I would be supportive of this particular policy 100%. We blogged about mushrooms and Amsterdam after my last trip in the spring to the city. Cicero and I both commented on the lack of proper information given to unaware users of the drug, and how irresponsible many smart shop owners and workers are. Unfortunately, with a more conservative government in power over the past few years efforts fix -- as they see it -- the image of the city have been continuously underway. Prostitution, coffee shops, have felt the pressuer -- tougher crackdowns on domestic marijuana growers, you could even throw the nationwide smoking ban in...If it wasn't done everywhere else in the world.

Ebb and flow...Ebb and flow. Hopefully more flow than ebb in this case... Full article here.