| COFFEEHOUSE CULTURE -- Issue 1 | ||
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PAGE TWO; ARTICLE THREE; NEWS STORY TAKING THE FUN OUT OF FUNGI |
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IN EARLY OCTOBER the long-awaited crackdown happened. Or it looked like it had. Suddenly mushrooms, freely available throughout central Amsterdam from a proliferating number of Smart Shops, became actively illegal -- for 20 minutes or more. No one in Amsterdam was surprised. Indeed, it was a matter of surprise that the authorities had not acted before. Although the police action provoked a TV news story featuring some suitably chastened smart shop owners, it had little real effect on the fungi trade. Apparently prompted by the phenomenal growth in the number of smart shops in Amsterdam and other parts of the Netherlands over the last year and by increasingly blatant flouting of the fairly unambiguous laws relating to the sale of dried mushrooms, the series of showy raids was dismissed by Amsterdammers as a Dutch gesture towards the EEC drug laws that does not jeopardise the nation's reasoned intransigence regarding the sale of cannabis. The smart shop phenomenon is one of the most extraordinary but least publicised aspects of the Netherland's drug policies. Dealing in a wide range of psychotropic substances and plants, on the whole the smart shops have a very responsible attitude to the volatile substances they sell. There are many experienced shamanic guides in Amsterdam and elsewhere in Holland and structured group rituals are easily available. The availability and free use of the major hallucinogens in guided situations is a social phenomenon with many far-reaching implications that impact directly upon the status of Amsterdam as a 'Holy City' and its role in defining the future. Not since pre-biblical times has there been a society where the use of hallucinogens was legitimised and, albeit casually, institutionalised. |
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Or read these Page Two articles in Plain Text: Psychos Gather in Amsterdam Outta Site The Trip Trap |
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