I just got back from Amsterdam... what a unique city! I love the canal network and the fact that everyone has a bike instead of a car, and a beer was surprisingly inexpensive for a tourist destination.
Most people who heard I was going to Amsterdam had the same reaction: they asked if I was going for the legal weed. With all the hype, you'd think the Dutch are all toking up... not the case.
I saw these statistics in the Hemp Museum in Amsterdam, and I found them again online:
The Netherlands has significantly fewer cannabis users than its reputation as a soft drugs haven might suggest, according to a study released on Wednesday.
...It found 15.6 percent of Dutch people aged 12 and over had used or tried cannabis, versus a U.S. figure of 32.9 percent.
-Reuters, available from MarijuanaNews.Com
Somehow I'm not surprised that the strict drug laws we have in the U.S. don't work. We have far too many people in prison for marijuana related charges (note: Incarceration rate as a percentage of population (1997): 73 per 100,000 in the Netherlands; 645 per 100,000 in the U.S.). I think the fact that marijuana is forbidden in the States makes it just that much more appealing, especially for younger people.
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