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Re:The quest for freedom and safety: Why I donated $100,000 ... by ugh on Friday October 29, 2010 @07:26PM (#1849478)
… as I understand it there are two main problems with the status quo. One is that under the old tolerance regime there’s still no way for a coffee shop to legally obtain the supply of marijuana you need to operate on the scale of a business. Consequently, de facto legalization hasn’t actually eliminated the black market and associated criminality. Secondarily, the main market for the coffee shops turns out to be drug tourists from abroad. That reduces the Dutch political constituency for keeping them open. And the two factors interact together to create a situation where there’s a strong case to be made that legal coffee shops (by bringing drug tourists from the UK and the US into shops that need to tap an illegal wholesale market to gain their supplies) increase the scale of organized crime in the Netherlands.

– http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/2010/10/coffee-shop-crackd...

Re:The quest for freedom and safety: Why I donated $100,000 ... by mambodog on Friday October 29, 2010 @10:31PM (#1849896)
So really, legalisation would work a lot better if all countries did it (eliminating drug tourism).
Re:The quest for freedom and safety: Why I donated $100,000 ... by anthonyb on Saturday October 30, 2010 @12:38AM (#1850115)
No, you just need to avoid doing it in a half-hearted manner. In the case of Holland, why shouldn't there be drug tourism? Why is it any worse than, say, coffee tourism? or wine and food tourism?
Re:The quest for freedom and safety: Why I donated $100,000 ... by mturmon on Saturday October 30, 2010 @01:10AM (#1850157)
Because the people drawn to drug tourism are more irresponsible, shallow, and opportunistic than your average tourist. Not always, sometimes not outrageously so, but in general. If you've been to Amsterdam, you might have noticed this, as I did.
Re:The quest for freedom and safety: Why I donated $100,000 ... by kablamo on Saturday October 30, 2010 @03:04AM (#1850331)
I was surprised Amsterdam seemed to maintain a clean, moderate, respectable attitude during daylight hours. I noticed the city is an insanely wealthy and beautiful place. I would guess they are making a ton of money off tourists.
Re:The quest for freedom and safety: Why I donated $100,000 ... by anthonyb on Saturday October 30, 2010 @02:49AM (#1850301)
So? Lots of people are irresponsible, shallow and opportunistic. I've seen Americans complaining loudly about prices and the lack of English while touring Italy, but nobody seems to want to ban the Duomo.
Re:The quest for freedom and safety: Why I donated $100,000 ... by Confusion on Sunday October 31, 2010 @09:52AM (#1853233)

  the main market for the coffee shops turns out to be drug
  tourists from abroad
That's not true. Although a number of coffee shops in Amsterdam and in cities close to the borders with Germany and Belgium primarily sell to tourists, there are many more coffeeshops that just sell to the local users.