Its too bad that a few publicized incidents are what is making this happen. They will still be available,..although illegaly now. They should know,and understand this. Prohibition is not the amswer,And I thought that amsterdam of all places understood this.

Guess thats not the case,..I would hate to see the coffee-shops go though before I get a chance to visit! :p

I don't understand why the Dutch government is banning a substance due to tourists using it improperly. Why clamp down on the rights of your citizens because of another nation's citizens? It just doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me. Personally I think the fact that it is mainly tourists, not Dutch citizens causing these incidents says a lot. Since the mushrooms are legal in the Netherlands, the citizens know how they affect a person, and how to act intelligently while on them. In other European countries, mushrooms are illegal, so the citizens never receive the education they need. Education that would prevent them from dieing.

Michael Blunk, President
Students for Sensible Drug Policy
University of Houston
mgblunk@uhssdp.com

It still boils down to the fact that the long arm of the American criminal government is out creating trouble in other countries, like Canada & Marc Emery , or trying to persuade Dutch politicians why they should restrict the liberties of their own countrymen. We should NOT tortue, but we should waterboard the entire administration and then turn them over to the Iraqi's.

bluntman68

Just because people shoot themselves in the foot we don't ban guns do we?

My experiences with smartshop mushrooms in Amsterdam indicated to me that the fungi they sell is relatively weak compared to some of the psilocybe growing in the States.  But then, everyone’s body and brain chemistry is different.

The “128-mushroom-related incidents” in 2006 lack details.  If an “incident” merely means some Brits ate shrooms and jumped into one of the canals, I bet they don’t do it again.  People piss in those canals.

I’ve seen young, male, testosterone-crazed British tourists create more than their share of problems everywhere they go. Many probably combine their shroom experience with alcohol.  In fact, the Reuters article goes on to say that the VLOS is arguing that the shroom incidents may also have involved alcohol consumption.  If so, they’re right.  Alcohol mixed with a psychedelic is often a fighting combination.

What is needed to make the shroom experience safer are more effective consumer warnings about the combined effects of the different drugs—a harm reduction approach.  To employ an analogy, as a society we don’t prohibit automobiles because people get impaled on the steering wheel in an accident; we engineer collapsible steering columns and airbags into the car instead.

As for the pretty French girl who took mushrooms and jumped off a bridge, perhaps the whole drama was pre-planned by her as a way to make an exit that obscured her suicidal intent to her family and friends (suicide is a sin in some religions).  We can no longer know for certain, because she's the only one who knows and she’s dead.  Given the tendency for prohibitionists to say anything while omitting critical details of their purported evidence, it’s virtually impossible for anyone to determine if prohibitionist information is solid unless they assiduously check the total evidence for themselves.

Giordano

If mushrooms and other substances do what people have long thought they do, which is open a sort of pathway to alternate states of consciousness, then the governments of the world are going to do what they can to stop the use of them. Everyone who knows of their ancient uses and the upcoming shift in the galactic calendar know what I'm talking about. If you don't, I think its time to start digging and finding out for yourselves.