Posted by Crazy_Charlie on January 11, 2005, at 12:15:58
In reply to Re: How I stoped smoking WEED, posted by wilson711 on January 11, 2005, at 11:14:56
I have been discussing the issues over and over with my boyfriend, and we have sorta finalized with this conclusion (comparison Norway vs Holland):
In the Netherlands they tell children at school (and at home) the truth about drugs instead of making propaganda. In the Netherlands they explain to their kids that heroin and weed is not the same, and that they are dangerous in different ways and affect your life in different way.
In Norway they tell you (at school!) that hash is even more dangerous than heroin because it makes you abuse stronger stuff (which is a bad bad myth). My mother actually believes that you can loose your short term memory PERMANENT from smoking once! And she is a teacher for 12-13 year old kids. How scary can that be?In Norway the police give a kid 1000 Nkr (about 160 USD I think) for carrying one gram of hash, and he will have that in his police record for the rest of his life, and it will be viewable for future bosses to check it up for up to five years after it happened. That means that for one single gram of hash you have your future spoiled. It means that you wont get a visa to a lot of countries (including US), and that you cant work a LOT of places. And the police will forever know about it, so if you are ever caught in anything again you will be viewed as a crminial 8repeating criminal acts).
In the Netherlands it is semi legal. The police CAN take away your weed if the want to. It is legal to sell up to five grams in coffeeshops, and you can carry up to 5 grams on you. If you are found with more, you WILL get a fine. In that sense, it is legal, but not completely. the kids here learn that marijuana affects your brain and can be bad for some people, BUT they can also CHOOSE if they want to check it out or not. If they choose to check it out, they are doing something that is semi legal, and thereby they are opposing the parent generation without risking having their future spoiled.In Norway you can only buy hash from dealers that usually also sell a lot of other strong stuff. Each time you buy hash or marijuana (weed is quite rare in Norway) you will also be offered a whole range of hard drugs. Since you believe that hash is the most dangerous of all drugs, and since it hasn't done you any bad even though you have smoked regularly the last month, it is not so dangerous trying amphetamine, is it? Besides, maybe you have a friend with ADHD, and he brags of that he is using "speed".
In the Netherlands you can buy it at coffeeshops, where hard drugs are absolutely not accepted. If you use or try to sell hard drugs in a coffeeshop they will call the police. In adition, if someone on a regular sells hard drugs in (or even close to) a coffeeshop, the police will close down the coffeeshop... FOREVER. Different propaganda huh.I could say more, but I think this kind of does it. I do NOT think that it would be good to legalize it in Norway though. At least not yet. The Norwegians are used to having everything strict, including the use of alcohol. Alcohol is also three times as expensive in Norway than in most other Nordic countries. So of course, Norwegians haven't learned how to tackle alcohol (or drugs) and thereby we have the worst abuse numbers of all the Nordic countries, and most other Eropean countries. And Norwegians are famous for their binge drinking when they are in countries that has very cheap alcohol. In fact, in Norway traveling agents usually have very cheap travels for young people to places where they sell cheap alcohol because they KNOW a lot will go. I usually find it embarrasing to meet fellow countrymen in Amsterdam because they are usually completely drunk. Most Norwegians wouldn't be able to handle legalizing of cannabis, and many will misunderstand it and still compare it to hard drugs.
In the Netherlands it is simply no deal... and if no one finds it anything special that you have tried it, it's not exciting anymore.
Blabla again.
But yeah, I feel more safe about letting my daughter grow up here than in Norway. It seems to me that even though there are quite a few stupid politicians also in this country, at least most of them are able to learn of their stategies and admit that they did something wrong. It seems to me that everyone is very relaxed about most things, and the Dutch are more tolerant to foreigners than any other place I have ever been.
No where else have I seen so many different cultures mixed happily together, even though also in Holland there are cultural groupings some places.
In Norway it's been "hip" for quite a while to be acceptable towards homophilia... but never once have I seen to men hold hands. here I've seen two 40-50 year old male punkers(!) kiss in the midst of the day in the capital of the country (you could get killed for that in some of the bad places in Oslo). And their former prime minister was gay, without anyone making anything out of that. He wasn't only gay, he was kind of "hollywood" gay, more feminine than most females (and a complete nutcase, but that didn't have anything to do with his sexual orientation).
You can spend a whole day in Amsterdam just looking at the people aroun dyou, and have a good time... it's like being in a real life circus! And the beautiful stone buildings, the canals, all the flowers in the spring... in Amsterdam people that live in the city center put out buckets with flower bulbs outside their windows (on the pedestrian field) in march (its still snow in Norwya then, and it would anyway be illegal to put buckets with dirt and flowerbulbs on our precious pavements. Not that the police would notice, since it would be demolished by some kids within no time).
Oh, an dthe animals! In Norway the only place you can have a pet is in your own home, mor eor less. Here a lot of small shops and cafees, and even restaurants have their own cat or dog. That has their own little sleeping place amongst all the guests. And in my daughters kindegarden they have several hens, a goat, rabbits and a cat. Splendid, in my point of view. Horrible in Norwegian politicians view (there might be allergy you know... but kids have actually LESS chance of becoming alergic when they have animals around them, and there's always kindergadrens that doesn't have animals. Can't I choose for myself?). Since 2001 I have been here regularly, and I have lived here for mor ethan 20 months in total. It's not perfect, but what country is perfect? It is good enough for me!
CC
poster:Crazy_Charlie
thread:368221
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/subs/20041128/msgs/440651.html