I decided that the whole wietpas saga is my karma for not voting even once in my life.
In the past, whichever country I have ever lived in, I made some efforts so that my own life and that of my partner would be reasonably comfortable. So my life didn’t change whether it was Thatcher, Blair or one of the numerous governments in Japan. I never lost jobs nor faced any humiliations because of the government changes.
However when I came to the Netherlands to start running Betty,TOO! Coffeeshop, I did not realize that I have stepped out of the comfort zone big time. I was naive enough to believe that coffeeshops, together with red light district and euthanasia is a symbol of Dutch pragmatism and appreciation of human nature and self-control and my business would be treated with respect just as other business.
But the last Dutch government decided that coffeeshops are encouraging illegal overseas trafficking and causing troubles to the law-abiding citizens therefore do not deserve the right to let people freely come in. You have to have a wietpas to come to coffeeshops and you have to be a Dutch resident to have a pass. The government must have been aware of the consequences that coffeeshops will not be able to sustain their businesses so it would effectively be a death sentence to coffeeshops for committing the crime of…………dealing in soft drugs, but it has actually been at least ‘tolerated’ by law. Is it just semantics that confuse me?
If the law is indeed implemented from next year, I will definitely lose my investment (as you can see, we were never millionaires who wanted to have a coffeeshop for the bloody sake of life style. it was a very hard earned money), current jobs and securities which come with it, while disappointing so many nice people from all over the world who have supported Betty,TOO! for many years. And these sound pretty much like my whole life. It was bad enough a couple of years ago that no one wanted to rent an apartment or grant a mortgage simply because of my job but now the national government, whose function is to secure its nations and residents is telling me that I have to lose everything, as if my life is nothing worthy.
If the problem can be solved by changing the politics, there is only one thing we can do. I do accept that I canNOT vote because I am not a Dutch national. However, I still have to speak on my behalf as a respectable-ish resident, explain my situation to the electorates and ask for cooperation.
Like I said, based on my own experience, politics may not matter to many people because we do not always see the direct effects in our life. Whichever party elected in will make sure that your day-to-day life will be just about sweet enough so that you only discuss politics in bars to impress your sexual objects.
However, this time I have to beg you all, with my forehead on the floor (Japanese style), to vote for the parties who are known to oppose wietpas. I learned a lesson that there is yet another thing I mustn’t take for granted in life – basic human rights to continue operating businesses under an already given lisence – and in order to secure this, I need your help. And of course, in the future, if I could help anyone to retain his/her well-deserved rights and if I’m allowed to vote, then I shall vote. Actually, in whichever community allows me to vote, I will study the local politics, speak to friends there and cast my vote.y
I promise to be a more committed part of the society, being aware of collective responsibility. Hope my friends will help me so please dissolve my karma, whoever almighty has given it to me…!
Betty,TOO! 
I loved your testimony Yuki and I am sure you will win this battle together with other people from The Netherlands, no matter where they came from! We are all citizens, you pay your taxes, you have your license, you are doing the right think! I Am voting for not having the wietpas!
I am glad you drug dealers are finally getting what you deserve. Your karma is supplying people all over the world “as you say” with drugs. The Dutch government is showing it is fed up with your kind. Good riddance!
The fact that the government has given us the license means that they have been committed themselves to the tolerance policies and those government have been elected by the electorate of the Netherlands. There is a clear technical difference between lisenced businesses and the street dealers. I guess, to Mr Peter Sheefler, the drug itself is the problem and I respect his personal like/dislike. I am however mainly discussing lawmakers’s responsibilities and civil responsibilities/rights. Also just to avoid confusion, I used the word Karma as a joke as I do not believe in religion and refuse to accept extremely limited rationality by my own standard. I appreciate Mr Sheefler’s enthusiasm to share his thought with me and his passion to proactively participate the discussion is definitely something we have to learn from. Thanks! The debate has to be done activelly so that we come to a collectivly responsible decision!
Ha, “yukitoo” just blew that prick out of the water
Judging by the tone of your comment you must be from the USofA. Land of the free and blessed. Land with progressive ideas like the prolife movement, tea parties, guns for every one and land of the obese and retarded. Go and invade some other oil rich country and spread some democrazy. It’s backward dumb fucks like you that make want to go out and do what you lot do best, shoot random strangers.
Go and fuck yourself and your double moral.
Hey Peter, your opinion is valid although a bit unnuanced. The Dutch government itself decided in the 70’s to categorize weed as a soft drug to prevent people from using other drugs besides Marijuana. Coffeeshops have a strict policy when it comes to keep out other drugs. Besides there are more drugs illegally being sold in most other western countries then legally over here. At least here we have some form of quality control. So you should consider becoming pro legislation because it will mean less drugs will be sold in the end. Unfortunately the good riddance will never happen. The more you make a taboo out of it, the more exciting it will be for people to use it. Now a least those people will not come into contact with street dealers who might sell them bad substitutes or stronger more dangerous drugs. I would also like to point you to a research showing that weed is less addictive and a lot less deadly compared to legal drugs like sleeping pills and alcohol. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/58013.stm. So I hope that if you decide to set forth your crusade towards drugs, to not just randomly pick and choose the drugs you consider to be the most dangerous (probably without scientific back up), to be consistent! I’m awaiting your response.
P.S. actually, i want more critical comments so that i can scruitinize my thoughts evern further! give it to me!!!!!!!!!!
Hey Peter. When I meet or read people like you, I always wonder: is it due to your grandma having sex with her cousin, too much karnemelk or the fact that god chosed you, before you were even born, to go to heaven that allows you to be such a narrow minded asshole? Please help me understand how you can invent apartheid, collaborate with the Nazis and still think you can give people advices about freedom of choice. I d suggest you roll a big one, masturbate on Wilders’ pictures and relax. It s gonna be ok little man. Breathe in and out. Give your brain some oxygen, it needs it obviously…
Ok – we decided not to do censorship in the comment section.
Nothing wrong with different opinions and no need to insult each other.
I hope everyone agrees to this. Thank you!
In rebuttal, wrong I am not from the US, I know the desire for marijuana will not go away, I did not have sex with anyone in my family. It is interesting how violent the tone of the negative responders emails are. I simply voiced my opinion and feel others should do the same without insult or injury.
I totally agree with Mr Sheefler on that this particular blog should be a place for discussion where we exchange our opinions, explain what does not seem to be clear to other parties. From this point, I appreciate Mr Martijn Van Veen’s comments including explanation of how things have been developing in the Netherlands for past decades. Like I said, I would be grateful if people of different opinions could explain their points of views to each other and am actually very curious on why Mr Mr Sheefler does not agree with the current tolerance policies. From his past comments, it is apparent that he is not a big fan of smoking culture but a bit more details of WHY would help me immensely understand what parts us. As I said yesterday, I would like to take this opportunity to re-examine as many ideas as possible and messages with logical explanations rather than burst of emotions would be much appreciated!
A recent study has proven what I have believed all along, smoking pot causes brain damage to teenagers. They lose mental capacity which they will never regain. It is also a fact that cannabis is not the benign drug that its proponents make it out to be. Studies have shown an increased proclivity for schizophrenia among pot users. As a healthcare professional, I applaud any effort by a government to curb drug use amongst young people.
If you think you will get sympathy for your cause from people who are opposed to an illegal but tolerated drug being sold on the open market as a stop gap to exposure to other hard drugs, then you really have not thought through your business plan properly. I know this will probably spark an emotionally charged response from pro-dopers but hey its my opinion and I am sticking with it.
I am not a healthcare professional so I tried to do some research on that study and found this article: http://goo.gl/qY57C
There is no link or title of the study, so I tried both search engines (Murdoch Childrens Research Institute and University of Wollong) without finding any documentation.
So unfotunately I have only the facts mentioned in the article, where the Senior Researcher get’s cited:
* “This is the first study to demonstrate the age at which regular cannabis use begins is a key factor in determining the severity of the brain damage,” Dr Seal told AAP.
* “If you’re a teenager and you’ve got all these natural cannabinoids in your white matter, it’s not good to be introducing a lot of external cannabinoids in your system, because it stops the white matter maturing,” Dr Seal said.
* “We don’t know if the changes are irreversible but we do know that these changes are quite significant,” Dr Seal said.
So if you claim “They lose mental capacity which they will never regain.” you should be so kind to bring the evidence. Same goes for the schizophrenia claim, because one of the newest articles that come up on goolgle.com shows me that they are finaly preparing clinical tests in the US after Sanofi-Aventis introduced it already in the 90’s in the EU…
http://www.patient.co.uk/medicine/Amisulpride.htm
Please do not forget that sales to minors is also not legal in the Netherlands. See: http://www.rnw.nl/english/article/faq-soft-drugs-netherlands for more information on the existing rules.
As you say, your not a medical professional and therefore have not observed first hand, in clinical analysis, the effects of cannabis on the formative brain. All I am pointing out here is that teenagers get access to cannabis in Holland, America, Canada etc. at an age when it is most detrimental to their mental health. There are numerous case studies which rarely see light of day and only by going to conferences on mental health around the globe do you here about such research.
I stress that every adult has a right to put whatever they want into their systems and my caution is directed only toward teenagers and the processes that allow them to obtain cannabis easier than alcohol or tobacco ie Coffeeshops, Medical Marijuana facilities in the US and here in Canada. I know all about the age restrictions and so forth, believe me the 18 year olds are sharing their stash with kids as young as 12. This is what I am most worried about and the impetus behind my initial post.
The studies I have come to be aware of all stress that the need for newer research is based on the potency of cannabis today. The concentration of THC has risen from the almost benign cannabis of the 1960’s to the double digit percentages available today. This potency factor is what has triggered much of the new cautions that mental health professionals look for in teenagers that are finding school and life in general hard to deal with. I have clinical experience with teenagers using very strong indica and sativa strains which are interfering with their day to day lives and getting these children off of the drug is paramount to improving their social and family interactions.
Thank you for your views, Mr Sheefler. In the Netherlands, coffeeshops are allowed to sell softdrugs to people who are at and above 18yrs of age and the rule has been strictly observed to my best knowledge so coffeeshops are not encouraging or helping teenagers with not fully developed brains to make use of softdrugs. Also, I find it very helpful that you are a medical expert who has data which shows potential harm caused by THC. Would you also have similar data for other narcotic products such as alcohol and tobacco? Would it be possible for you to share a bit more concrete and relative data so that it is a bit more convincing to those who are not as necessarily knowledgeable in scientific area? Also, I would be even more grateful if you could provide information which is widely regarded by public as not so influenced by certain business interests such as beverage / tobacco companies?
On a different note, I wrote my article from my personal perspectives but I do not expect public sympathy to affect legal institution of a state. I also do not believe that coffeeshops’ raison-d-etre is not to fill the gap with the hard drugs and none my business principle nor business plan is based on it . You seem to have been confused to mix up my thoughts and that of Mr Van Veen. Also, I cannot be responsible for some other people’s emotional outbursts but I am still willing to discuss and like I said, your contribution of unbiased comparative scientific data which prove that THC is more harmful than other narcotic substances would be much appreciate. Thanks, looking forward to hearing from you. Have a lovely weekend.
I stick to my original comment regarding Mr. Peter Sheefler with the addition of a broken bottle. It is amazing how much ignorance, stupidity and backwardness someone can utter in just a few words. Which leads me to conclude that aforementioned Sheefler is actually just trolling.
Drugs are evil, god is great, long life our government and hail to the sheeple.
Have a nice day and don’t forget to vote!
I forgot to stress, I really appreciate Mr Sheepler’s contributions because, as someone who does not believe in what we do, must be in belief that he should make his own effort to get in touch with pro-smokers to get his messages across. Otherwise he would not have bothered to come to my blog and give his opinions. I would therefore love to see his scientific findings as a medical expert. Also, in order for me not to misunderstand him, It would also be appreciated if Mr Sheefler could also try his best not to be misunderstood that he is also rather emotional in use of his words. For example, if he is a scientist, he should not have said that it is my karma religious belief) to be selling drugs (even though it would have been more than obvious that I did not use the term with )or I am busy trying to get people’s sympathy. There is a chance that such expressions could be taken as hostile on a personal level and given the fact that I have been focusing on the discussion and nothing else, it could be misleading and does not help communication amongst people who have no previous contacts nor minimum trust. It is a danger of on-line communication but I do not want our communication to suffer from that. Thanks!
People who frequent your shop are still teenagers. The report on teenagers affected by use of cannabis can be found on CNN ie http://www.cnn.com/2012/08/27/health/health-teen-pot/index.html. If you really think that your wares have not been smoked by teens under 18 then you really are deluded. I do not have to discuss other narcotics or drugs as this discussion is about cannabis. It is a typical tactic of the pro-cannabis community to lob alcohol, tobacco (which is predominantly smoked along with cannabis in Europe anyway), and other drugs into the mix.
I still do not understand the ravings of Stomabeutel. Obviously diminished mental capacity has already taken its toll.
PS Yuki I merely turned you words back at you. I personally do not believe in Karma.
Peter said something mean about my mental capacity! You sir are a true idiot and I was devastated when I read that you are a Canadian (or at least living there). You have no right to judge, marijuana is helping me battle the side effects of a series of chemo therapy treatments.
That is also the reason why people like you piss me off, get off your high horse Peter you are a disgrace. Oh and no one ever got injured by what other write in comments but tell you what I’ll do for you, I will put a bandage on your internet boo-boo and give you a kiss your forehead to make it all better.
Alternatively you can fill out the official “butthurt” form, which I can sent you if you still feel hurt and or violated. You are not a medical professional and posting a link to some article on CNN, is not proofing anything, for I could find a dozen links claiming completely the opposite.
You’re good sheep though!
Thank you very much for your comments, Mr Sheepler. I believe that soft drug use by teenagers are widely recognized all over the world but coffeeshops in Holland are strictly regulated so that only those who are above the age of 18 can enter. I therefore do not accept that coffeeshops in Holland are promoting drug use by youth. I also believe that it is not a semantic tactics but a fair argument that comparison of different narcotic substances should support that coffeeshops in Holland are rather harmless and as far as there is a big enough community taking the same position as mine and someone with scientific expertise believes otherwise, I believe it is social responsibilities based on integrity for you to present statistics to public to argue. Otherwise there is absolutely no point in your coming here claiming to be a medical expert. I’m just saying this to keep our discussion as focused and efficient as possible. Keeping valuable information within laboratories and conference community is not helpful. It would be very helpful if natural scientists are a bit more aware of their responsibilities from socio/human science points of views and act upon it. If those who are engaged in research and studies are refusing to share their knowledge but claim that it is only proved in labos and agreed at conferences, instinct of general public will be that they either do not have data to support their arguments or have data against their belief and therefore not wish to disclose it. Also, it is such a shame that such instinct is a resut of widely spread distrust of closed policy of certain section of medical research community and allegedly manipulated results of some researches (because of funding issues).
I believe in discussion with as much credible data as possible. Anyone with similar belief as that of Mr Sheepler who can offer some convincing data, please……!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!? That will be much much appreciated! You all have a great week!
“I am glad you drug dealers are finally getting what you deserve. Your karma is supplying people all over the world “as you say” with drugs. The Dutch government is showing it is fed up with your kind. Good riddance!” Calling honnest working people “Drug Dealers” is of course not violent…”Your kind” is of course not a fascist way of defining people…”I simply voiced my opinion and feel others should do the same without insult or injury.” So did I. I tried to understand how people like you, Mr Sheefler reached such a high level of stupidity. So i had to check all the possibilities in the past and present area. I m glad you didn t have sex with members of your family but now, the mistery is not solved: What made you think that Christian-Nationalist governments should decide for grown adults? I went down to your level which is unforgivable, i admit. On the other hand, if people here want to have a talk with you, so be it. As far as i am concerned “people of your kind” are great material for Tea Party’s lookalike all over the world, and i just feel like insulting you. Everyday, several times a day…Freedom of choice, one more time…
As a last point, obviously this is an emotional charged discussion as evidenced by the crass and crude remarks made. Opinion in my circle of medical colleagues regarding cannabis is clear, for adults its your right to do whatever you choose, for teenagers, and that includes 18 year olds, the damage is not worth the high.
PS I am a medical professional and Peter Sheefler is my pen name.
You are obviously a troll. Not a single line of your comments is proving a medical background. You also have no clue how the Dutch system works and from your first to the last comment you show that you do not understand that this article is about political responsibility towards licensed businesses not about the drug itself.
You could have read the FAQ that I linked to before and you would understand that the supply to kids below 18 is not due to coffeeshops. This is not my idea, but based on research done in Holland and is supported by the Police and real researchers like at http://www.jellinek.nl
The problem you are talking about (supply to minors) is a different issue. It does not happen because of the coffeeshops, but also without them. Look around in any other country and you will find minors smoking pot without having any legal sales in the country. Chances that their dealers are also selling them hard drugs is much bigger as the margins are a lot better!
If you really want to save minors from drugs, make sure you and your professional colleagues will publish and educate by publishing facts and not sudo science. Studies and papers that are not available, can not be used for education and discussion and are therefore not of any use at all.
Why am I labeled a TROLL? Because my opinion differs from yours?
As to your point about teenage access to weed in any country? Most countries dont have the potency of cannabis that Holland has available. If Holland would raise the age of admittance to a coffeeshop to 20 or 21 I would have more respect for this pseudo (not sudo that’s linux) legal coffeeshop system.
still no evidence of medical knowledge, but
still smarter than Dutch researchers who are in the country
still discussing the wrong thing and not the article
= troll.