Amsterdam's Tolerance - Is it all good? Or is there evidence of negative impacts?

[filmguy123]

Only had a 24 hour layover in Amsterdam, enjoyed it! But it got me curious on the city, culture, and policies in The Netherlands. It's often pointed to by Americans as they say, "hey, look at the dutch model!".

Looking things up online, all I can seem to find is positive stuff: lower cannabis usage statistics, crime rates, law enforcement costs. On one hand, it all seems to look really good! Great, even.

But certainly this isn't the whole story? I've also read about the problems with Drug Tourism and how it's become a central trafficking location for drug distribution to the rest of Europe, and neighboring countries aren't happy about it... then again, couldn't you just make the argument that if they all legalized cannabis drug tourism and trafficking (and any associated crime) wouldn't be a problem, and their drug use statistics may simply stabilize to that of Amsterdam's?

Yet, I'm skeptical about all of this. Are these statistics misleading? Is it really all rosy? Or does the tolerance attitude effect drug usage on other drugs such as ecstacy (which doesn't seem to be reported on)? Has it caused problems in the educational systems? And what of legalized prostitution, how has this affected society? Has it helped eliminate illegal channels of trafficking, or simply changed the form of what trafficking may look like? Has it corrupted family values/cheapened something that should be held in higher regard into a commodity?


Anyway, please no political debates, I am looking for information and perspective on the situation in the Netherlands and Amsterdam. What are some of these statistics or easy google results not showing in terms of the truth of Amsterdam's liberal policies on sex, drugs, etc.? Have there been less publicized negative impacts on society and culture, or has it really simply been a good thing all around?

 

[Gillvane]

I lived there for 3 months. Rode a bicycle over every inch of the city at all times of the day and night. I felt very safe and never encountered any problems. It was a fun city to live in, much better than a lot of cities in the US.

 

[Andrius Simutis]

I can't comment much on Amsterdam, but here in Seattle we're about to find out a little about it firsthand since we are now transitioning into a state with legal marijuana. I don't smoke pot but I voted for the legalization of it. Why? Quite simply because the prohibition was a complete failure. There may be some negative effects here and in Amsterdam, but compare that to the negative impacts of the drug war like way too many kids winding up with criminal records, too much crime associated with the drug trade, etc. The war on drugs has had a lot of casualties and left the US with the largest prison population of the world. If you look at the options objectively, legalization with regulation looks a lot better than criminalization and no regulation. In a perfect world people might not get high, but we don't live in a perfect world.

 

[filmguy123]

You make some good points there, Andrius. I'm interested in the issue, being in Portland. What is interesting to me is there seems to be a near universal consensus against drug use. Pro legalization arguments always seem to revolve around using legalization as a more effective means of "harm reduction." And in Amsterdam, 83% of the population from the last statistic I could find have never smoked weed. Meaning only 17% of the population, despite it being readily available, go and smoke. The US is slightly higher at 23% despite it being legal. Not a HUGE difference - perhaps the point being, most of society does not want to pursue this.

I guess my thought or question is: At what point does tolerance turn into indifference? Amsterdam has the motto "live and let live" yet it seems to me, for all the nice connotations of love/acceptance/etc. the attitude is more of "do what you want as long as it doesn't bother me" VS "love your neighbor as yourself."

I wonder about who this 17-23% is? Certainly there are many one time users or a recreational user here are there who are otherwise normal, healthy, member of society. But how many people "choose" drugs NOT because it's truly a "free" choice in the fullest sense of the word, but an escape from an otherwise painful life, or hopeless circumstance, or has become an addiction/vice. That doesn't mean we should judge them, but it seems that in the whole argument of legalization VS prohibition the whole heart behind it all has perhaps gotten lost...

do we sweep those people under the rug?
do we write off their "choices" as merely choices rather than symptoms of deeper isses? (I think of human trafficking and how the vast majority of it is a "free choice" for woman, as in they weren't kidnapped and held against will... but it's not really a free choice, it's merely their best option because of a very bad circumstance or lack of other options).

And what affect does "normalization" (perhaps distinct from legalization?) of drug use and prostitution in Amsterdam perhaps have on the people?

Even Amsterdam, looked at by young liberals here in the states as the model for "freedom" to "do what you want" and "live and let live", at a societal level, seems to view the legalization not as a way to grant freedom and approve of drug use, or prostitution, but rather as a method of "harm reduction" to what they consider genuine problems that are harmful to people and society. And based on statistics, this doesn't seem to be a few people in gov't saying this, this is a long held view of societies all around the world. Yet many young people today are losing the plot and making it more about "anything goes" VS "how we care for our fellow man, or neighbors? What is the most effective way to reduce harm?"

I don't have answers to these questions, I'm more just... positing them. Wondering if (1) they are valid questions at all, and (2) what others perhaps think of this? Or is it all roses for Amsterdam?

 

[groveChuck]

If you want a much broader, historical look than "legal weed: good or bad?" this new book looks at the long history of tolerance- religious, cultural and ethnic, and Amsterdam's influence in the rest of the world.

http://amazon.com/Amsterdam-History-Worlds-Most-Liberal/dp/0385534574
Amsterdam: A History of the World's Most Liberal City

Tourists know Amsterdam as a picturesque city of low-slung brick houses lining tidy canals; student travelers know it for its legal brothels and hash bars; art lovers know it for Rembrandt's glorious portraits.

Russell Shorto conjures the anything-goes spirit of contemporary Amsterdam, with its pot-smoking and red-light districts, from the city&'s fascinating past as a major port city. Amsterdam, to Shorto, was not only the first city in Europe to develop the cultural and political foundations of what we now call liberalism—a society focused on the concerns and comforts of individuals,... run by individuals acting together, and tolerant of religion, ethnicity, or other differences—but also an exporter of these beliefs to the rest of Europe and the New World. Shorto composes biographical sketches of these originators (Rembrandt, Spinoza) and exporters (John Locke, the Dutch East India Company) as he guides readers on a narrative tour of Amsterdam&'s intellectual history, its rise from a sleepy site of religious pilgrimage to the center of a trading empire into the present. Shorto's examination of Dutch tolerance also focuses on its failures, including an examination of collaboration with Nazi occupiers during WWII, and its current struggle to integrate its immigrant underclass into a more egalitarian multicultural life.

That said, what works for the Dutch may or may not work for Americans... they're very different countries with very different histories...

 

[Patryk_Rebisz]

Every action has a reaction - that reaction is both positive and negative (positive to some, negative to others: One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter - the saying goes).

As far as the question of choice. One of little know facts about my native country, Poland, was that in 1600s when much of Europe was stuck in 30 Year War over nonsense: Christianity v Protestantism, Poland gave tremendous amount of religious freedom to its citizens. At the very same time a staggering number of its citizens were allowed to participate in ruling the country (15% of population had vote v 1-2% in France and England). You would think that with all that freedom Poland would be the coolest place to live. Unfortunately with crap-load of freedom came negatives such as weak kingdom (the king simply had very little say in ruling the country - which is ok when other countries have also functioning democracies but not so when they are ruled by kings). When 1700s rolled in the king's rule was so weak and its neighbors was so strong that the neighboring countries rolled over Poland and took it apart - the country ceased to exist for 150 years. Point of the story: it's very nice and peachy for us to think that democracy and freedom is awesome - because we were programmed to think that way and cherish those values. If we looked at those qualities with more skeptical eye we would discover - as in example above - that it's not always what it cracks out to be.