Sunday, September 9, 2012

RS2: Maastricht, Marijuana And The European Dream


            Marijuana and the EU was a very interesting podcast that really got me thinking. Why would the mayor ban the drug from the foreigners and only allow it to the local people?  I believe the decision that the mayor of Maastricht made will anger the coffee shop owners, cause other stores to go out of business, and it could possibly cause more crime.        

            With the new law the mayor of Maastricht passed, it does not allow anyone from outside the village to purchase any marijuana or even step foot into the coffee shop.  The only people who are capable of making the purchase of the pot is the locals.  To the coffee shop owners this kills there business, the stat that was given was that 93 percent of the coffee shops business was from the foreigners.  So for the coffee shop owners there business was shot.  They lost all off there income and are faced with the closure of their stores in the near future.  I don’t think that the mayor thought his decision all the way through, he did not realize that the new law was going to hurt so many people financially.  After the mayors decision the coffee shop owners have decided to take the case to court.  They were arguing that the Euro was created in order to help the free trade system so they could go anywhere in Europe and not have to exchange currency in order to buy something.  People could cross the borders into Maastricht and go buy a bag of potatoes but they couldn’t buy the marijuana even though it was legal there.  With foreigners not allowed to buy the marijuana they had no purpose to come to Maastricht any longer.

            With the foreigners not coming to Maastricht any more for the marijuana the other businesses would suffer as well.  The amount of people that the coffee shops brought in allowed for other shops to flourish due to the mass of people in the area.  This is a goo example of the guidepost we learned about that had secondary effects.  You remove the pot smokers from the town you take business away from the other stores.  The mayor basically sabotaged the town’s economy with one rule that he hoped would just eliminate the foreigners from buying weed from his town. Instead he eliminated the town’s main source of business.  Illegalizing marijuana to be purchased by the foreigners wouldn’t stop them from smoking the drug.  

            So some people continued to cross the borders and purchase marijuana from local dealers.  In a way it was cheating the system.  Either they come to the dealers in Maastricht and cheat the system and it crosses the line of being illegal/legal or they purchase the drug from illegal dealers from where ever they are from increasing the crime rate.  By allowing the purchase in the coffee shops in Maastricht it eliminated the crime because of the pure fact that it was legal there.  If you are a pot smoker and you are told you cant buy at the coffee shops any longer, its not going to stop you from smoking. You will find other means of acquiring the drug no matter how you need to do it.  So with the law in place I only see crime on the rise until a solution is made.

            I learned from this podcast the real meaning of secondary effects.  Sometimes you may not see he secondary effects until they are already upon you.  The new law in my eyes will cause crime, close down other shops, and anger the coffee shop owners.

No comments:

Post a Comment