Danes Try to Ditch Cannabis Prohibition

As the U.S. starts to slide backwards after years of progress on the MMJ front Amsterdam and their neighbors are marching forward.

"The city council of Copenhagen voted 39-9 Thursday night to set up a committee to explore how best to legalize and regulate the sale of marijuana in the Danish capital. The move is supported by Mayor Frank Jensen.

After the committee makes its recommendations, the issue will go to the Danish parliament, where similar efforts have been blocked in the past, but some Danish politicians are saying this time could be different.

The council vote paved the way for the council’s Social Affairs Committee to draft regulations making Copenhagen the first city in Europe to legalize marijuana sales. Holland’s famous cannabis cafes that sell marijuana are technically in violation of Dutch law, but are allowed under a policy of pragmatic tolerance.

While marijuana /cannabis sales are quietly tolerated in Copenhagen’s “hippie enclave” of Christiania despite authorities shutting down its most brazen manifestations several years ago, possession and sale of cannabis (Indica / Sativa) remain illegal under Danish law. Possession of even small amounts can lead to a fine of up to $705 or even jail time. Still, the Copenhagen pot market is strong and vibrant, with annual sales estimated at $275 million, most going to criminal gangs.

“We are thinking of perhaps 30 to 40 public sales houses, where the people aren’t interested in selling you more, they’re interested in you,” said Mikkel Warming, the councilman who heads the Social Affairs Committee. “Who is it better for youngsters to buy marijuana from? A drug pusher, who wants them to use more, who wants them to buy hard drugs, or a civil servant?” he asked in remarks reported by the Telegraph (UK).

Warming said that while questions remained about how to implement a marijuana sales system, the Dutch model was not one he wanted to follow. “We want to make it a little bit more concrete what kind of decriminalization we want: should it be a public buying system, should there be an age limit?” Warming said. “We don’t want an Amsterdam model. We want a way to make it legal to import or grow marijuana,” so that criminal gangs don’t profit it from it, he said.

The notion of legal, regulated marijuana sales has significant, but not unanimous support among the Danish political class, the Copenhagen Post reported. Social Democratic councilor Lars Aslan Anderson told the Post legalizing the trade would bring broad benefits and that there is a parliamentary majority that would approve it.

“It’s better that the council distributes hashish and not criminals,” he said. “I hope we get the opportunity to try a new policy because we can’t just continue the current prohibition strategy with hash which is very outdated.”

But not everyone was on board. “We strongly urge Frank Jensen as the country’s former justice minister to stop this crazy proposal,” said former Copenhagen deputy minister Martin Geertsen, a member of the conservative Venstre Party.

And not even all the Social Democrats are on board. “We don’t want to make it easier to get hold of hash because then more people would use it and be worse off for it,” said Social Democratic MP Ole Haekkerup. “If you look at people who use hard drugs, two-thirds of them started with hashish,” he claimed.

Still, legalizing marijuana in Copenhagen will be an item before the Danish parliament next year."

 

i know, so damn stupid!

alcohol got me into altered states then weed found me next... simple.

 

I had smoked marijuana before i had touched my first beer...

 

And if you look at the countries that HAVE legalized/decriminalized, use is actually down from when it was illegal.

I remember going to my old dealer in my home town asking for some hash and he was out... but would I like some cocaine? THAT is more likely why people go on to harder drugs, the same person who sells them weed will offer other stuff at the same time. A government regulated vendor would not.

 

It's a ridiculous comment. Ban chocolate and you will find that - lo and behold, the people that get their chocolate from a dealer get put on to the harder stuff too. When you are talking about what is a 'gateway' drug that says absolutely nothing about chocolate and everything about issues of legality - if chocolate was legal there would be no need to contact these dealers.

 

Time to rebuild Christchurch :2thumbsup:

 

....



Cheers Glen.

 

wonderful - lets hope it goes ahead in C'hagen

simon :sunny:

 

I went to church before I ever tried weed. Church must lead to drugs obviously.

 

Very much so agree with you there. If you are out of pot, the other stuff that you get offered is way more tempting.

+1 for your post :2thumbsup:

 

Because its no longer a forbidden fruit. everyone wants it when authority figures say you can't have it.

 

It doesn't seem to work that way with alcohol...or tobacco

 

Actually, close to 100% of hard drug users started with milk.
We must ban milk; Remember:
Milk is for babies,
Cow milk is for baby cows.

 

Why all the ban?
Why talk about church ban and milk ban why not talk about legalize?
Make legalizezion not bans

 

Well hell, you could say they started with spinning in circles in their own yard. But that's totally irrelevant, when basically it comes down to bad etiquette and people who haven't had access acting like idiots when they finally GET access. Most people don't smoke pot. But even the best people get irritated when inundated with pot tourists. Who likes tourists? Even people who make their money off of tourists think they're douche bags. The answer? Quit being douche bag tourists. I'm embarrassed as a pro-legalization person that the restrictiveness of pot legalization has lead people to think they can be fucking morons when the CAN smoke up. Etiquette, people!

 

Really nice to hear. Prohibition is not the solution to everything.

 

I think they will pass the legislation. It makes fiscal sense to do so. Not to mention the control factor. There will always be some knucklehead politician to try and change the venue no matter how god the idea/proposition is.

 

Spurious bullshit aimed at the dumbest dingleberries in society.

As pointed out by others, alcohol and tobacco, more often than not, preceded hashish. I'll go a step further in pursuit of this stupid argument. One hundred percent of users started by breathing oxygen. Another one hundred percent of them started by drinking water. I'll bet a huge number of those followed up by using caffeine, and many, god forbid, may have used chocolate, too.

If there is an argument to be made it is that many people are forced to obtain pot from illicit dealers. Dealers often push (hence the nomenclature) their alternate products of people, some of whom (many of which are young and not terribly well informed) take them up on the their offers.

When you legalize, regulate (and educate), this kind of exposure is effectively mitigated.

 

You are misquoting Skip... He's not the one who said that, he was quoting a source and you didn't include Skip's reply when you quoted it again.