In the Netherlands, the use of marijuana is legal. For a long time it can be bought, sold and consumed with total normality in the popularized coffeeshops. It must be borne in mind that this is a country that is distinguished by its liberal character, which has a very high valuation of the individual freedom of people.
According to economic experts, this situation has caused the so-called drug tourism, already well positioned among foreigners. There are many who travel to the country where it is easy to find from a good place to sleep to a cheap grow shop, not only to know its environments and culture, also to enjoy the consumption of cannabis in public places and its sale in establishments without social or legal pressure of any kind.
At first, the sale, purchase and consumption of this substance was fully legalized in the Netherlands, however there was a legal vacuum, the owners of the shops could not legally acquire cannabis since, until two years ago, growing marijuana was still a prohibited activity.
The recent relaxation of the regulations by the administration was not without controversy, on the one hand the most conservative sectors of the country understood this clear step towards full normalization as a losing battle against drugs, and on the other other European countries rushed to defend its laws before the thousands of citizens who looked with a certain ambition of imitation to the Dutch.
Although there are many governments that assure that a openness to the legal consumption of marijuana it would suppose a social disaster in terms of the conception of drugs and the spread of addictions, some of the countries that have opened this door seem to offer data that refutes these catastrophic predictions.
According to the opponents of this type of policy, easy access to this drug only facilitates its consumption, however, there are already several studies that contradict their arguments, since the factors and repetitive patterns of consumption, such as the age of onset or the amount of drugs in Amsterdam, remains until today very similar to those of the countries that maintain the prohibition of their citizens.
These findings cast doubt on the attributions of those in favor of criminalization, who claim that without the threat of punishment the frequency and quantity of cannabis consumed will increase and pose a problem for public health.
On the contrary, the Dutch policy on drugs maintains that by decriminalizing it, hard drugs such as heroin, which reinforce problems of drug trafficking, addiction and death, among others, considerably decrease their degree of popularity..
In addition, the legalization of marijuana use has had positive effects in the country, eliminating cases of crime due to drug trafficking and promoting the standardization of medical research with marijuana.
Many experts support that what really conditions the consumption of drugs that are so widely used are not inflexible legislative measures, but rather social controls, that is, norms or indications on where, when and with whom to consume cannabis..
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