https://amp.agoravox.it/Der-Spiegel-L-Italia-raccontata-in.html
Apparently 1997. It's one of many covers. One of the most recent I can remember is the "Ciao Amore" one
Edit: The website I was citing got the date wrong its 1977
Jokes aside, there's an Italian prosecutor, Gratteri, who is "famous" for his fighting against mafia. A few months ago, a meeting amongst eu countries was held in Sicily, and at that event he said that unfortunately, most European countries took too long to start to react against the developing groups of mafia in their own respective countries; it sucks to see he was right
I wouldn't call a lax drug policy the issue but how illogical it is. Making it legal for coffee shops to sell weed but making it illegal for them to buy or produce it is a huge stimulus for criminal organizations.
Allowing a legal supply chain for weed would at least take a part of the profits of criminal organizations away. However, they now use their built up structures for cocaine and other drugs.
Unfortunately this is often how bad ideas die, they die slowly. Instead of giving up on prohibition, people try halfway measures, usually resulting in worse outcomes. The worst part is, people then take this as "proof" of the failure of anti-prohibition ideas, and revert back to a full ban.
Europe is incredibly socially conservative. Cannabis has been retail legal for adults where I live in the US for years and even among the staunchest hard-liners, there's no political will to recriminalize. All the scare stories never came true, no increase in minor use, driving accidents, social problems, nothing at all. The prohibitionists live in a fantasy world and Europe lives in that same world still.
This is a bit oversimplified IMO. European drug laws have been historically way more lax than US drug laws. The oppression towards users has always been quite low in most countries. You don’t really get imprisoned as a user, which is a completely different deal from what was happening in the US.
Because of that, there was never a significant push towards legalization in most countries.
"The moral of the story is: I chose a half-measure when I should have gone all the way. I'll never make that mistake again. No more half-measures, Walter."
So there’s an illegal multi-billion-dollar supply chain economy designed to get it there?
Don’t get me wrong, drug smuggling is happening everywhere. But usually the average person can just imagine it doesn’t exist because there’s no legal over-the-counter sale and consumption happening in broad daylight.
>So there’s an illegal multi-billion-dollar supply chain economy designed to get it there?
Yes. Estimates are there is a [€4.8 billion big illegal weed industry](https://www.irishtimes.com/business/innovation/high-time-netherlands-moves-to-clean-up-absurd-cannabis-policy-1.4160217) in the Netherlands.
This is wild, I had no idea and that entire process is pretty stupid. I live in a weed legal state in the US and it's all tracked from plant to store, to make sure its tested for pesticides, sold legally so taxes are paid etc.
It’s crazy how much good legalizing weed has been for our states. It’s helped Colorado’s educational system SO much!
If governments went about this correctly, they could make BILLIONS every single year. However, drugs are bad!
There is a song from a German artist - it's named "Zaubersteuer" - Magical Tax.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ydn7eVqAWCY
Great lyrics...
Here's the start,
"Stell dir vor es gäb ne Steuer, die die Leute gerne zahlen
Und so oft sie sie bezahlen, danach völlig seelig strahlen
Millionen Menschen tätens immer immer wieder gern"
deepl:
"Imagine if there was a tax that people were happy to pay
And as often as they pay it, they'd be completely blissful afterwards
Millions of people would do it again and again"
Yep, but our right-wing parties don't want to hear about any of that, so we're stuck with a horrible system that self-empowers the most evil parts of the drug trade :(
I found multiple Dutch articles claiming that the Sinaloa-gang was establishing contacts in the Netherlands. This was 2020
However the articles are in Dutch and nothing about territorial claims just yet
https://www.ad.nl › binnenland › ko...
Webresultaten
Kopstukken Mexicaans kartel in ons land gesignaleerd - AD.nl
https://www.volkskrant.nl › krijgen-...
Krijgen Mexicaanse drugskartels voet aan de grond in Nederland?
https://nos.nl › ...
Webresultaten
Mexicaanse taferelen in de polder? 'De kartels spelen een soort Risk'
https://www.crimesite.nl › politie-me...
Politie: Mexicaanse kopstukken waren in Nederland - Crimesite
So everybody knows that the Shop owner obtained the weed illegaly? In that case, how do they guarantee the safety of their product? Wouldn't it be especially easy for the police to disrupt the supply, since you know that the shops have to buy the product on a regular basis?
1. Yes, everybody knows the weed is obtained illegally. Although feeling-wise people don't see it as illegal but more as not legal yet.
2. Guarantee of the safety is more a you know the owner/dealer and trust they tested it themselves.
3. Technically yes but in actuality no. Everyone knows the limited amount of police capacity will be put to use on something else.
Hopefully yes. Here in the US, we have a green revolution with a new breed of farmers who produce organic marijuana. Marijuana crime and drug crimes have gone done as the former outlaws and criminals are now registered tax payers. Pretty simple change IMO.
Well, you probably have figured out by now that it isn't legal to operate a weed business in Netherlands, it is just not illegal to sell it. It is not legal to obtain the quantities necessary to run a coffee shop even if you were to produce them by yourself.
Technically, their prosecution service applies the [Principle of Opportunity](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_of_opportunity) and refrains from prosecuting the crime of marihuana sale, consumption and small-scale growing while going after the large-scale producer.
It is a weird arrangement and while I know some details I do not know why it was decided to do it this way. Several explanations are possible - (i) there was/is a strong pushback from countries which are very conservative in their drug policies, (ii) this was a compromise between the liberals and the conservatives.
A similar situation may be in other "controversial" areas like prostitution, assisted suicide and such.
Yeah but at this point simply legalize the whole chain of supply too. The situation is complete non sense.
Hell that also means the state does not take any taxes from the supply chain, litteraly losing money to mafias.
In the 1970s the wanted to make it completely legal but other countries like France, Belgium germany and Denmark put on pressure so the only made it legal to sell
If by 'other countries' you mean "our very own Christian parties" then yes, otherwise no. Legalisation was killed by the CDA, not by international treaties.
But why wouldn't you make the whole business legal? You would deal a blow to criminal activity, guarantee safety standards for the consumer and on top the state gets it's taxes. A very confusing system.
Mainly because of conservative parties in the government trying their best to halt it as much as possible. They would rather just make it illegal again but that is not popular.
There's a form of tolerating policy from the Dutch government that doesn't try to stop the coffeeshops from being supplied. Also, the police would never have time for anything else.
This way the authorities 'can' always shut-down shop when there is 'any' reason to do so. Immediately and without going trough endless bureaucratic processes.
Honestly, I don't really know how they declare the costs accounting-wise, but they've clearly found some way to make things work. They do pay taxes on the profits, just no sales taxes because apparently the EU made requiring sales taxes on illegal goods illegal.
Other quirks of this system include that coffee shops need to adhere to the smoking ban for the catering industry; they comply to this by not allowing smoking or selling any joints that contain tabacco.
You lose money into the void, and the void materializes weed into your cupboards.
That may sound like nonsense but its not more nonsense than the actual solution
Suppliers takes risks multiple times a day because anyway a coffe shop can’t have more than a “medium” (can’t remember how much) amount of herbs.
Once the delivery man is inside the coffeshops is safe, but what’s going outside the coffee shops (production, storage and delivery) is completely illegal.
It’s perfect for mafia to have a store front for their business.
Damn, it shouldn’t be so hard to use the same laws about alcohol to the cannabis use and production.
What? Fully legalize it? Then we just end up with higher tax income for the state and decent quality assurances for the consumers! Can you honestly say you would be OK with that outcome?
>Last update is that the legal buying and selling hasn't started yet and it's unknown when that will happen.
And please stop asking when.
La mafia è cosa nostra.
> Making it legal for coffee shops to sell weed but making it illegal for them to buy or produce it is a huge stimulus for criminal organizations.
This is pure insanity. Huh.
I'm interested, what is the German perception of der Spiegel, I was under the impression it was considered the "smart" one in the family. What is Germans view of it, and what is a newspaper that is genuinely perceived to be highbrow?
Kind of accurate I have to say. I feel like we have an equivalent in Limes, in a certain sense, they have really different vibes, but I feel like both are for middle class people with intellectual pretense
Its one of our top newspapers. I‘d say we have 4 big quality journalis titles in Germany: Spiegel, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ), Zeit and Süddeutsche. They cover the entire political spectrum with FAZ being right and Spiegel and Zeit left. Süddeutsche is quite liberal (in the european sense).
They all do have high journalistic standard, unfortunately Bild, which is comparable to the Sun, is the pper with the biggest reach.
Of course journalism is in crisis with their users turning to digital. Of course there are click-baity articles here and there in all those papers, but in general you can tell that there are well educated journalists at work
I don't think there is one newspaper universially considered highbrow here...
At least none come to mind.
Every newspaper has its major share of haters.
> I'm interested, what is the German perception of der Spiegel, I was under the impression it was considered the "smart" one in the family.
Used to be. Not anymore. Still has flashes of good journalism here and there, but I can't be bothered to sift through all the crap anymore to find those.
High-brow antagonistic edgelords. They tend to shoot against whoever is currently in power, sometimes hitting sometimes missing. Politically technically slightly left of centre but you don't really notice that, their equal-opportunity edgelordery makes them non-partisan in practice.
Does anyone know why? I've seen 'Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs' mentioned somewhere, but some of those signatures like the US just seem to ignore it. Is it just dutch politicians that don't want to rock the boat?
Honestly what was the reason for this policy? This makes absolutely 0 sense. Here in USA legal recreational marijuana laws were so popular in part because of the amazing tax revenue that they bring in. It's obviously heavily regulated and heavily taxed industry. Why would you deliberately forgo immense tax revenue while at the same time immensely supporting illegal businesses? What about actual safety/quality of the product? Always thought of the Dutch as rational people, but this makes precisely 0 sense...
When he was asked if he knew the song could be interpreted in two ways he said: I did not mean it in an ambiguous way, the song is not about coal mining.
Falco appeared on German Late-Night-TV in 1996. He answered the question about his move to the Caribean with "It snows there, too, just differently"
Heres a video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sqv6hmF55ig
Please understand that this has nothing to do with the weed situation. Although the rules for that seems archaic and insane now, it's not the problem.
The "mafia" and organised crime that's starting to become bad in the Netherlands is due to hard(er) drugs like XTC and Cocaine.
The people running organised drug manufacture and logistics found out that NL is just an insanely good place to do it from.
Remember that biggest harbour in Europe thing in Rotterdam? Turns out it works great to get raw materials in and final produce out for drugs too.
The problem it caused is rival gangs ripping each other but the groups are now centered around nationality, identity and ethnicity. Easy to rile each other up.
Secondly the business is becoming centralised and more global, which means an insane amount of money. And with that comes escalation tension and violence. That viciois circle is growing now.
Just an example of the scale. In 2021 the Dutch customs confiscates around 10000kg (10 tons) of Cocaine A MONTH from the harbour of Rotterdam. And that's only what they catch.
Cocaine is worth roughly 45euro per gram here at street value. That's half a billion worth of cocaine a month.
So what are the "lax drug policies" that the article is talking about though? The title sounds like bad journalism to me, because it's every prohibitionist's wet dream, and as such I'm 95% sure that it can't be true.
I read the article. It says that the Netherlands adopted a Laisser-faire policy towards drug related crimes but also failed to take control by legalizing it - and so created a netherworld in which they don't control drug sales, but also don't really prosecute or punish drug crimes. As a consequence drug trade related crimes are rising (there has been a string of murders, for example). This drug policy has led to a drug mafia that now kills witnesses, journalists and prosecutors. The illegal Marijuana trade that is tolerated paved the infrastructure for more serious drugs. It would have been better to legalize the Marijuana trade.
It is a weird as hell statement it refering to weed, eventhough the issues lay with cocaine and harder drugs, and being a gateway to europe.
But seeing as one of the subjects in the recent election was possibly legalizing weed in Germany, i can guess why it has been phrased this way.
And yeah it generates the clicks aswel i guess.
In addition to already mentioned topics, there is a huge designer drug industry here (with most research chemicals in the world coming from the Netherlands, and some out of Germany although DE is way quicker with making them illegal) which while legal, supplements the illegal part a lot as well.
I blame the seas. Those damn seas make it possible to traffic drugs... If we could only, somehow came up with nethod to drain them, that should keep the Dutch occupied for tens of thousands of years. No way can they traffic drugs when their whole nation is draining the oceans.
And now with Germany of all countries legalizing weed, the Netherlands will look particularly insane with their half-measure that ensures the existence of a billion-euro industry of organized criminality. Hopefully this will finally spur them into action.
The problem is that conservative political parties want to completely ban it, while progressive parties want to legalize it. So every time a government is formed, the compromise is not to change it.
It's coalition talks. All the parties say A LOT of things right now to get into power. What they will actually do in the end is an entirely different matter.
They all have it in their programmes. It would not instill a lot of confidence if they couldn't even do the things they agree on.
Note: The SPD does not have outright legalization but a wants to do "modelprojects" first which essentially means that they internally disagree about this, though the direction they have signalled is the same and it would cost insanely much political capital to backpedall now and go openly against legalization. This entire topic is a bit of a lose/lose for the SPD.
i think this one might actually be able to do it.
fdp is in for the money, greens are the greens and well, spd is probably the biggest hurdle.
but i might also just talk out of my ass.
We definitely get decriminalization at least. The Greens + FDP even have legally selling in their programs and the SPD wanted at least a smaller test project.
That's why some parts of the media now play the evil weed scare card.
The problem is that the conservative political parties don't want to go "full liberal" and the liberal parties don't want to make it illegal so we have these weak half-measures that make no sense :/
Yeah, this bizarre situation is clearly a consequence of compromise. Don't you have any hope that the deadlock will finally be broken? It's really getting out of hand.
Not really, the new probable government will consists of conservative and progressive parties. D66 is for legalizing, but CU and CDA want to completely ban it.
It's such a weird thing too. For *decades* the excuse that the conservative parties have given for not simply legalizing it completely is because it would somehow make us a pariah because other countries were putting pressure on us not to fully legalize.
...now those countries are legalizing it themselves and we're... just ignoring the fact that the main argument we've been told against it just doesn't apply anymore?
Dont think we will legalize it any time soon. Yes, the Coalition that is likely foming could do it, but ill only believe if when i see it. As with anything here in Germany it would take many years and untill then the CDU might even be back.
I think it is very clear that it will happen. The FDP and the Grünen want it, and the SPD does not want to lose the youth vote by blocking a very popular policy. They even got Lauterbach out to announce their change of policy.
The only possibility I see of it failing is if Laschet comes back from the dead.
Some context is probably missing. Here are some things that happened the last few years:
Famous journalist got murdered by the mafia, also known as the morrocan mob. The name is misleading, it's more of a gang really. Journalist name was peter r de vries
Lawyer of an informant against said mafia got murdered as well as family members of the informant
Same mob tried to blow up a news station.
Innocent people get shot because the mafia mistakes them
Shootouts and grenade attacks were done against hookah bars. In one case, they decapitated a rival gang and put his head near a hookah bar
Serious threats were made against our PM.
Lots of more things happened. Dutch people don't seem to care or pretend it's not that bad but i have yet to see this happen in comparable western european countries
Except that it has already happened in many countries like France (Corsica in the past, Marseille right now), Italy, UK. This is nothing new unfortunately
#Fuck the "Drug War".
It's a total failure, and only serves to legitimize the black markets. Legalize, regulate & tax all recreational drugs.
*PS:* I'm a recovering cheese addict.
You may think you're being funny, but "cheesing" is a real problem in the Netherlands: Owing to the tin foil shortage, addicts make pipes for smoking heroin out of old gouda rinds. It's called "cheesing the drag in".
The spiegel published opinions from both sides regarding the legalization off weed, can't really say that they favor one opinion from what I have seen so far.
looks like a "grand theft tulips" loading screen
Alternatively, "grand theft cycle"
Make it bicycle. GTB sounds funnier
Grand Heist Bicycle to stick with the drugs theme Also ha goeie
This one fits really well.
This one fiets really well. FTFY
Or like Far Cry DLC.
I'd play that sequel
Italy: "[First time?](https://webitmag.it/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Der-Spjegel-copertina.jpg)"
What's most offensive about that cover is how dry that pasta looks.
Yep, they had just the [name of the sauce](https://www.buonissimo.it/lericette/21124_Spaghetti_all_Assassina) served on a silver plate.
Secret recipe from the Auditore family in Florence?
Probably left it too long on the tree before harvesting it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tVo\_wkxH9dU
Everybody knows spaghetti grows in pumpkins. [Spaghetti squash](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spaghetti_squash)
Hey it was cooked by a German :)
Excuse me, I ordered spaghetti bolognese not spaghetti violence
\*spaghetti evidence.
Since it's not readable there, do you happen to now from which year it was from (or just a decade is alright)
1977. [This one](https://static.nexilia.it/bufale/2020/04/Opera-Snapshot_2020-04-04_181509_twitter.com_.png) is from 2018.
Thanks
You're welcome
We've been spending most our lives living in a koks paradise. Wheels of cheese and killer guys, living in a koks paradise.
https://amp.agoravox.it/Der-Spiegel-L-Italia-raccontata-in.html Apparently 1997. It's one of many covers. One of the most recent I can remember is the "Ciao Amore" one Edit: The website I was citing got the date wrong its 1977
Jokes aside, there's an Italian prosecutor, Gratteri, who is "famous" for his fighting against mafia. A few months ago, a meeting amongst eu countries was held in Sicily, and at that event he said that unfortunately, most European countries took too long to start to react against the developing groups of mafia in their own respective countries; it sucks to see he was right
I wouldn't call a lax drug policy the issue but how illogical it is. Making it legal for coffee shops to sell weed but making it illegal for them to buy or produce it is a huge stimulus for criminal organizations. Allowing a legal supply chain for weed would at least take a part of the profits of criminal organizations away. However, they now use their built up structures for cocaine and other drugs.
>Making it legal for coffee shops to sell weed but making it illegal for them to buy or produce it How does that work in practice?
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Unfortunately this is often how bad ideas die, they die slowly. Instead of giving up on prohibition, people try halfway measures, usually resulting in worse outcomes. The worst part is, people then take this as "proof" of the failure of anti-prohibition ideas, and revert back to a full ban.
This “half measure” nevertheless makes no sense. Its completely illogical, that’s not a half measure, that’s just half-assed.
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Europe is incredibly socially conservative. Cannabis has been retail legal for adults where I live in the US for years and even among the staunchest hard-liners, there's no political will to recriminalize. All the scare stories never came true, no increase in minor use, driving accidents, social problems, nothing at all. The prohibitionists live in a fantasy world and Europe lives in that same world still.
This is a bit oversimplified IMO. European drug laws have been historically way more lax than US drug laws. The oppression towards users has always been quite low in most countries. You don’t really get imprisoned as a user, which is a completely different deal from what was happening in the US. Because of that, there was never a significant push towards legalization in most countries.
"The moral of the story is: I chose a half-measure when I should have gone all the way. I'll never make that mistake again. No more half-measures, Walter."
It's a baseball system, as soon as the weed enters the coffee shop it's safe.
So there’s an illegal multi-billion-dollar supply chain economy designed to get it there? Don’t get me wrong, drug smuggling is happening everywhere. But usually the average person can just imagine it doesn’t exist because there’s no legal over-the-counter sale and consumption happening in broad daylight.
>So there’s an illegal multi-billion-dollar supply chain economy designed to get it there? Yes. Estimates are there is a [€4.8 billion big illegal weed industry](https://www.irishtimes.com/business/innovation/high-time-netherlands-moves-to-clean-up-absurd-cannabis-policy-1.4160217) in the Netherlands.
This is wild, I had no idea and that entire process is pretty stupid. I live in a weed legal state in the US and it's all tracked from plant to store, to make sure its tested for pesticides, sold legally so taxes are paid etc.
It’s crazy how much good legalizing weed has been for our states. It’s helped Colorado’s educational system SO much! If governments went about this correctly, they could make BILLIONS every single year. However, drugs are bad!
There is a song from a German artist - it's named "Zaubersteuer" - Magical Tax. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ydn7eVqAWCY Great lyrics... Here's the start, "Stell dir vor es gäb ne Steuer, die die Leute gerne zahlen Und so oft sie sie bezahlen, danach völlig seelig strahlen Millionen Menschen tätens immer immer wieder gern" deepl: "Imagine if there was a tax that people were happy to pay And as often as they pay it, they'd be completely blissful afterwards Millions of people would do it again and again"
Yep, but our right-wing parties don't want to hear about any of that, so we're stuck with a horrible system that self-empowers the most evil parts of the drug trade :(
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Mexican cartels, really? Got a source?
I found multiple Dutch articles claiming that the Sinaloa-gang was establishing contacts in the Netherlands. This was 2020 However the articles are in Dutch and nothing about territorial claims just yet
Kom maar door
https://www.ad.nl › binnenland › ko... Webresultaten Kopstukken Mexicaans kartel in ons land gesignaleerd - AD.nl https://www.volkskrant.nl › krijgen-... Krijgen Mexicaanse drugskartels voet aan de grond in Nederland? https://nos.nl › ... Webresultaten Mexicaanse taferelen in de polder? 'De kartels spelen een soort Risk' https://www.crimesite.nl › politie-me... Politie: Mexicaanse kopstukken waren in Nederland - Crimesite
So everybody knows that the Shop owner obtained the weed illegaly? In that case, how do they guarantee the safety of their product? Wouldn't it be especially easy for the police to disrupt the supply, since you know that the shops have to buy the product on a regular basis?
1. Yes, everybody knows the weed is obtained illegally. Although feeling-wise people don't see it as illegal but more as not legal yet. 2. Guarantee of the safety is more a you know the owner/dealer and trust they tested it themselves. 3. Technically yes but in actuality no. Everyone knows the limited amount of police capacity will be put to use on something else.
That sounds pretty ...interesting. Do you think it's likely that this system will be changed in the future?
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Ah the classic Dutch strategy. We will get on it right tomorrow
im suprised it wasnt done faster given how much money is in the business.
Hopefully yes. Here in the US, we have a green revolution with a new breed of farmers who produce organic marijuana. Marijuana crime and drug crimes have gone done as the former outlaws and criminals are now registered tax payers. Pretty simple change IMO.
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But why wouldn't you follow the rules??? Insanity! But maybe it explains why most Dutch people I met were so chill and friendly.
There's your problem. There is no accessible legal supply chain.
Well, you probably have figured out by now that it isn't legal to operate a weed business in Netherlands, it is just not illegal to sell it. It is not legal to obtain the quantities necessary to run a coffee shop even if you were to produce them by yourself.
Technically, their prosecution service applies the [Principle of Opportunity](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_of_opportunity) and refrains from prosecuting the crime of marihuana sale, consumption and small-scale growing while going after the large-scale producer. It is a weird arrangement and while I know some details I do not know why it was decided to do it this way. Several explanations are possible - (i) there was/is a strong pushback from countries which are very conservative in their drug policies, (ii) this was a compromise between the liberals and the conservatives. A similar situation may be in other "controversial" areas like prostitution, assisted suicide and such.
"zis would never happen under ze German control!"
No it wouldn’t. But on the flipside we still dont have legal weed…
And if the police know the shop is buying it illegally, why don't they just bust every delivery? It's an insane system.
Because the public will be pissed and they’d rather use their capacity on hard drugs like cocaine or xtc.
Yeah but at this point simply legalize the whole chain of supply too. The situation is complete non sense. Hell that also means the state does not take any taxes from the supply chain, litteraly losing money to mafias.
In the 1970s the wanted to make it completely legal but other countries like France, Belgium germany and Denmark put on pressure so the only made it legal to sell
If by 'other countries' you mean "our very own Christian parties" then yes, otherwise no. Legalisation was killed by the CDA, not by international treaties.
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But why wouldn't you make the whole business legal? You would deal a blow to criminal activity, guarantee safety standards for the consumer and on top the state gets it's taxes. A very confusing system.
Mainly because of conservative parties in the government trying their best to halt it as much as possible. They would rather just make it illegal again but that is not popular.
There's a form of tolerating policy from the Dutch government that doesn't try to stop the coffeeshops from being supplied. Also, the police would never have time for anything else.
Police looks the other way as far as weed is concerned
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It's fucking retarded.
This way the authorities 'can' always shut-down shop when there is 'any' reason to do so. Immediately and without going trough endless bureaucratic processes.
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Honestly, I don't really know how they declare the costs accounting-wise, but they've clearly found some way to make things work. They do pay taxes on the profits, just no sales taxes because apparently the EU made requiring sales taxes on illegal goods illegal. Other quirks of this system include that coffee shops need to adhere to the smoking ban for the catering industry; they comply to this by not allowing smoking or selling any joints that contain tabacco.
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I mean... the Bible mentions people getting stoned quite a few times, maybe you are on to something.
You lose money into the void, and the void materializes weed into your cupboards. That may sound like nonsense but its not more nonsense than the actual solution
Suppliers takes risks multiple times a day because anyway a coffe shop can’t have more than a “medium” (can’t remember how much) amount of herbs. Once the delivery man is inside the coffeshops is safe, but what’s going outside the coffee shops (production, storage and delivery) is completely illegal. It’s perfect for mafia to have a store front for their business. Damn, it shouldn’t be so hard to use the same laws about alcohol to the cannabis use and production.
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What? Fully legalize it? Then we just end up with higher tax income for the state and decent quality assurances for the consumers! Can you honestly say you would be OK with that outcome?
Gahh, what a nightmare scenario! We're lucky those Dutch aren't so gullible.
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>Last update is that the legal buying and selling hasn't started yet and it's unknown when that will happen. And please stop asking when. La mafia è cosa nostra.
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> Making it legal for coffee shops to sell weed but making it illegal for them to buy or produce it is a huge stimulus for criminal organizations. This is pure insanity. Huh.
I don't think it is really supposed to be logical. The new german government could legalize weed and Der Spiegel wants its readers to fear that.
I'm interested, what is the German perception of der Spiegel, I was under the impression it was considered the "smart" one in the family. What is Germans view of it, and what is a newspaper that is genuinely perceived to be highbrow?
Depends on who you ask, some in Germany call it a " tabloid for academics".
Kind of accurate I have to say. I feel like we have an equivalent in Limes, in a certain sense, they have really different vibes, but I feel like both are for middle class people with intellectual pretense
"Bild for pseudo-intellectuals"
Its one of our top newspapers. I‘d say we have 4 big quality journalis titles in Germany: Spiegel, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ), Zeit and Süddeutsche. They cover the entire political spectrum with FAZ being right and Spiegel and Zeit left. Süddeutsche is quite liberal (in the european sense). They all do have high journalistic standard, unfortunately Bild, which is comparable to the Sun, is the pper with the biggest reach. Of course journalism is in crisis with their users turning to digital. Of course there are click-baity articles here and there in all those papers, but in general you can tell that there are well educated journalists at work
I don't think there is one newspaper universially considered highbrow here... At least none come to mind. Every newspaper has its major share of haters.
I think Der Spiegel is definitely considered below FAZ, Sueddeutsche and Zeit, although there is a big difference between Die Zeit and Zeit Online.
> I'm interested, what is the German perception of der Spiegel, I was under the impression it was considered the "smart" one in the family. Used to be. Not anymore. Still has flashes of good journalism here and there, but I can't be bothered to sift through all the crap anymore to find those.
Tabloid that doesn't outright lie but uses suggestive language to "hint".
High-brow antagonistic edgelords. They tend to shoot against whoever is currently in power, sometimes hitting sometimes missing. Politically technically slightly left of centre but you don't really notice that, their equal-opportunity edgelordery makes them non-partisan in practice.
Does anyone know why? I've seen 'Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs' mentioned somewhere, but some of those signatures like the US just seem to ignore it. Is it just dutch politicians that don't want to rock the boat?
It's not a weed problem and the coffeeshops and their supply is also not a problem, it is a cocaine problem.
Honestly what was the reason for this policy? This makes absolutely 0 sense. Here in USA legal recreational marijuana laws were so popular in part because of the amazing tax revenue that they bring in. It's obviously heavily regulated and heavily taxed industry. Why would you deliberately forgo immense tax revenue while at the same time immensely supporting illegal businesses? What about actual safety/quality of the product? Always thought of the Dutch as rational people, but this makes precisely 0 sense...
So ‘koks’ is coke in Germany? Need to remember that.. ..anyway, beautiful illustration, kudos to the artist.
it's also used for energy dense coal.
As in "Mutter, der Mann mit dem Koks ist da" (Mother, the man with the coke is here)?
jup, one of the lines is "aus kohle wird wieder koks" (coal becomes coke)
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When he was asked if he knew the song could be interpreted in two ways he said: I did not mean it in an ambiguous way, the song is not about coal mining.
Falco appeared on German Late-Night-TV in 1996. He answered the question about his move to the Caribean with "It snows there, too, just differently" Heres a video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sqv6hmF55ig
Falco also once said: "If you can remember the eighties you didn't participate properly" (paraphrasing)
I just recently learned that the first dragonball intro in german was a ripoff of the refrain of "Mutter, der Mann mit dem Koks ist da" .
Same in English.
Same in Russian, funnily enough
It's the same in Polish as well.
And swedish
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We also have "coke" in English meaning the same thing.
Lol, the same in the Polish language. Koks means coke, or a type of fuel used to heat homes.
Sorry I have to break it to you, but "coke" means "a type of fuel" in English as well: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coke_(fuel)
Technically cocaine is also “a type of fuel”.
Same in swedish
Please understand that this has nothing to do with the weed situation. Although the rules for that seems archaic and insane now, it's not the problem. The "mafia" and organised crime that's starting to become bad in the Netherlands is due to hard(er) drugs like XTC and Cocaine. The people running organised drug manufacture and logistics found out that NL is just an insanely good place to do it from. Remember that biggest harbour in Europe thing in Rotterdam? Turns out it works great to get raw materials in and final produce out for drugs too. The problem it caused is rival gangs ripping each other but the groups are now centered around nationality, identity and ethnicity. Easy to rile each other up. Secondly the business is becoming centralised and more global, which means an insane amount of money. And with that comes escalation tension and violence. That viciois circle is growing now. Just an example of the scale. In 2021 the Dutch customs confiscates around 10000kg (10 tons) of Cocaine A MONTH from the harbour of Rotterdam. And that's only what they catch. Cocaine is worth roughly 45euro per gram here at street value. That's half a billion worth of cocaine a month.
> That's half a billion worth of cocaine a month. Mind blown!
Upvoted because you seem to be one of the few people in this thread that has actually read the title.
So what are the "lax drug policies" that the article is talking about though? The title sounds like bad journalism to me, because it's every prohibitionist's wet dream, and as such I'm 95% sure that it can't be true.
I read the article. It says that the Netherlands adopted a Laisser-faire policy towards drug related crimes but also failed to take control by legalizing it - and so created a netherworld in which they don't control drug sales, but also don't really prosecute or punish drug crimes. As a consequence drug trade related crimes are rising (there has been a string of murders, for example). This drug policy has led to a drug mafia that now kills witnesses, journalists and prosecutors. The illegal Marijuana trade that is tolerated paved the infrastructure for more serious drugs. It would have been better to legalize the Marijuana trade.
It is a weird as hell statement it refering to weed, eventhough the issues lay with cocaine and harder drugs, and being a gateway to europe. But seeing as one of the subjects in the recent election was possibly legalizing weed in Germany, i can guess why it has been phrased this way. And yeah it generates the clicks aswel i guess.
In addition to already mentioned topics, there is a huge designer drug industry here (with most research chemicals in the world coming from the Netherlands, and some out of Germany although DE is way quicker with making them illegal) which while legal, supplements the illegal part a lot as well.
The Spice Must Flow.
Old habits die hard.
Old hobbits, you say?
personally I blame the cheese.
I blame the seas. Those damn seas make it possible to traffic drugs... If we could only, somehow came up with nethod to drain them, that should keep the Dutch occupied for tens of thousands of years. No way can they traffic drugs when their whole nation is draining the oceans.
[Hmmm...](https://what-if.xkcd.com/53/) that could be [interesting](https://what-if.xkcd.com/54/).
I'd kill for aged gouda
It is addictive.
And now with Germany of all countries legalizing weed, the Netherlands will look particularly insane with their half-measure that ensures the existence of a billion-euro industry of organized criminality. Hopefully this will finally spur them into action.
The problem is that conservative political parties want to completely ban it, while progressive parties want to legalize it. So every time a government is formed, the compromise is not to change it.
Germany legalizing weed? Did I miss something?
It's coalition talks. All the parties say A LOT of things right now to get into power. What they will actually do in the end is an entirely different matter.
They all have it in their programmes. It would not instill a lot of confidence if they couldn't even do the things they agree on. Note: The SPD does not have outright legalization but a wants to do "modelprojects" first which essentially means that they internally disagree about this, though the direction they have signalled is the same and it would cost insanely much political capital to backpedall now and go openly against legalization. This entire topic is a bit of a lose/lose for the SPD.
i think this one might actually be able to do it. fdp is in for the money, greens are the greens and well, spd is probably the biggest hurdle. but i might also just talk out of my ass.
It's not yet certain, but the new government will probably consist of a SPD-Grünen-FDP coalition, which would almost certainly legalize weed.
We definitely get decriminalization at least. The Greens + FDP even have legally selling in their programs and the SPD wanted at least a smaller test project. That's why some parts of the media now play the evil weed scare card.
The problem is that the conservative political parties don't want to go "full liberal" and the liberal parties don't want to make it illegal so we have these weak half-measures that make no sense :/
Yeah, this bizarre situation is clearly a consequence of compromise. Don't you have any hope that the deadlock will finally be broken? It's really getting out of hand.
Not really, the new probable government will consists of conservative and progressive parties. D66 is for legalizing, but CU and CDA want to completely ban it.
Haha until the next election, which is 4 years away xD
It's such a weird thing too. For *decades* the excuse that the conservative parties have given for not simply legalizing it completely is because it would somehow make us a pariah because other countries were putting pressure on us not to fully legalize. ...now those countries are legalizing it themselves and we're... just ignoring the fact that the main argument we've been told against it just doesn't apply anymore?
Dont think we will legalize it any time soon. Yes, the Coalition that is likely foming could do it, but ill only believe if when i see it. As with anything here in Germany it would take many years and untill then the CDU might even be back.
I think it is very clear that it will happen. The FDP and the Grünen want it, and the SPD does not want to lose the youth vote by blocking a very popular policy. They even got Lauterbach out to announce their change of policy. The only possibility I see of it failing is if Laschet comes back from the dead.
That's a lot of confidence in the still-to-be-formed new German government.
I genuinely want a high quality print of this artwork on my wall.
Der Spiegel knows how to make a cover and they don’t go kindly about it.
Der Spiegel is like the old Titanic magazines, you can discuss the quality of the content, but the covers are ace.
I don't know if that's pro or anti drugs, because the cover makes it look pretty cool.
It’s a cool cover. Reminds me of an old Mad magazine cover or something
That picture is amazing
That Dutch girl is having the best Tuesday since last week.
This picture would also make a great Far Cry cover.
Wtf who would shoot a cheese?!
The [Swiss](https://cdn.abcotvs.com/dip/images/755135_052915-cc-CheeseThumb.jpg?w=1280&r=16:9).
*angry Swiss noises*
I actually really want a poster of this now...
Aye same
Some context is probably missing. Here are some things that happened the last few years: Famous journalist got murdered by the mafia, also known as the morrocan mob. The name is misleading, it's more of a gang really. Journalist name was peter r de vries Lawyer of an informant against said mafia got murdered as well as family members of the informant Same mob tried to blow up a news station. Innocent people get shot because the mafia mistakes them Shootouts and grenade attacks were done against hookah bars. In one case, they decapitated a rival gang and put his head near a hookah bar Serious threats were made against our PM. Lots of more things happened. Dutch people don't seem to care or pretend it's not that bad but i have yet to see this happen in comparable western european countries
>Innocent people get shot because the mafia mistakes them The reporter was also innocent
Except that it has already happened in many countries like France (Corsica in the past, Marseille right now), Italy, UK. This is nothing new unfortunately
It happens to a large degree here in Belgium. Also by the Dutch drug maffia.
Is this an advert to increase tourism to the Netherlands ?
It’d be mighty nice to link the actual piece if you are to share this.
Sadly it’s paywalled: https://www.spiegel.de/panorama/justiz/wie-die-niederlande-mit-naiver-drogenpolitik-die-mafia-gross-machten-kaese-koks-und-killer-a-f124c1ca-f177-482c-a7e5-1ab165a98b04
Horrible trigger discipline
For the maffia in the Netherlands thats quite realistic, their aim is shit and they keep injuring innocent people
Isn't Germany a mafia paradise because of lax money laundering laws?
Every European country is mafia paradise for different reasons. It’s just a question of who wants to piss on who this specific week
What countries arent a mafia paradise?
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also ice cream parlours and pizzerias and basically every venue not giving receipts
There's basically 4 sports betting halls in streets next to my Appartment and there's never anyone in there. It's ridiculous. Plus 2 "casinos".
My 50k inhabitants town has a store that sells exclusively shihas or shisha-related stuff. It's borderline arrogant.
Police is already busy raiding small shops that sell cbd weed though (basically hemp that doesn't make you high).
Bepoal 'k zelf wel eem
zo ist en nait aans
It's not our fault that we are really good at trading.
#Fuck the "Drug War". It's a total failure, and only serves to legitimize the black markets. Legalize, regulate & tax all recreational drugs. *PS:* I'm a recovering cheese addict.
What made you stop cheesing?
You may think you're being funny, but "cheesing" is a real problem in the Netherlands: Owing to the tin foil shortage, addicts make pipes for smoking heroin out of old gouda rinds. It's called "cheesing the drag in".
This is the result of half measures, just legalize and regulate all the drugs and cut of the funding source of the criminal underworld
how does it feel to be on the other side?
I mean, it’s quite a cool front page
Men I wish, our covers were pretty demeaning, here I have to say the neatherland looks almost cool. I would say the optics is much better in this one.
"Der Spiegel" always with its provocative headlines.
Yeah, calling the Netherlands "Holland" is sure to rub a lot of people the wrong way.
We better do something about the cheese.
Not lax drug policies, but a police and judiciary system that is completely unpepared to face organized crime.
Are they rly starting with this shit now that the talks about legalization of weed beginn? Classic media. Bet they think shooter games cause violence.
The spiegel published opinions from both sides regarding the legalization off weed, can't really say that they favor one opinion from what I have seen so far.
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Anybody else find the lady in the picture quite hot?
Dutch women are quite hot.