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| -Short Attention Span Theater- |
| Duuude, the Man is, like, he's got a stash, man! The man is stoned! |
| 2007-12-31 |
| When it comes to turning a blind eye to cannabis use in Europe’s most tolerant city, police in Amsterdam are demanding the right to practise what they preach. Officers in the capital of the Netherlands are in open revolt against a new code of behaviour that orders them to stop taking drugs in their free time. The new rules, due to come in on January 1, have upset officers who patrol the city’s infamous coffee shops, where cannabis is smoked openly by locals and millions of tourists attracted by Amsterdam’s relaxed atmosphere. It has been their duty for years to operate a policy of nonenforcement over the coffee shop culture. Now the police union will back its members in defying the cannabis ban. The union has vowed to bring a test case in court against the first officer to fall foul of the new rules, claiming that they amount to an unjustified intrusion into personal life. “Police should not be put in pigeonholes in which they can no longer be themselves,” said Hans van Duijn, the chairman of the Nederlandse Politie Bond, the police union. “If you allow people in the country to smoke [cannabis], you would be a hypocrite to say to the police officers, ‘You are not allowed to do that’. “It is illegal by law but we allow it for everybody else just to use it in small amounts for themselves. There must be scope for using soft drugs.” . . . |
| Posted by:Mike |