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