Can tourists still smoke marijuana in Amsterdam? I've heard the laws have recently changed.?

Short answer: Strictly speaking no. However for all practical purposes you can consider it legal as long as you do business in a coffeeshop. It's set to change by the end of next year though.

The current state of drugs tourism in the Netherlands Apparently there's a lot of publicity in the foreign press, enough to make the stoners, dopeheads and druggies wonder if there is any point in visiting Amsterdam (there is but only if you can broaden your horizon beyond being drunk and/or stoned). Currently the Dutch coffeeshop scene is as it has been for years. Coffeeshops are decriminalized as is use and possession for personal use (5 grams), the suppliers of the coffeeshops are still criminals.

Shops require anyone to prove with a valid ID that you are at least 18 years old. This site: http://www.coffeeshop.freeuk.com is a fountain of English information about the Amsterdam coffeeshop scene. The latest plan was that, starting in the fall of 2011, in the southern and eastern provinces they will start converting coffeeshops to members-only clubs.

Each coffeeshop can have a max of 1500 "members' and those need to be dutch residents. Additionally they will up the limit for distance to schools from 250 to 350 meters. Some municipalities are resisting this, others are welcomming the new laws.

One of the left wing opposition parties, D66, has pushed for a legalisation of weed but idea got little support. After that it looked all set to go until in June 2011 our council of state, which has the last word on some government and legal issues, ruled that an earlier experiment of the city of Maastricht with banning tourists was illegal. Not because you couldn't ban them but because you cannot use additional local ordonances to regulate something that's forbidden in the first place.

And weed is forbidden in our "opiumlaw". The fact that that bit of the law is hardly ever inforced apparantly does not matter. After summer recess or politicians had a few options.

1. Adjust our law that outlaws marihuana which is frankly not very likely 2. Start enforcing the law and close coffeeshops alltogether 3.

Think of something different. But then the Greece crisis and other things stole the attention away from the discussions around a more sensible approach to softdrugs. That is until late october 2011.

Heavy weed has now been classified as a hard drug (much higher penalties, cannot be sold by coffeeshops any more) and heavy weed is defined as having a thc content of over 15%. Early November our Secretary of Justice has submitted a plan to our house of representatives to get the club system of the ground as early as january 2012 for the provinces in the south of the country. Personally I doubt if that will work since there's still a lot of legal details unsolved.

Typically for this country the Secretary has already said that "a few weeks later" is also acceptable if the data causes problems. The rest of the country, INCLUDING AMSTERDAM, is now scheduled for january 1st 2013. If that really happens remains to be seen of course but it's once again looking like a real possibility.

The reason behind the whole discussion is that most of the Dutch get sick of the foreign junkies that come here to score and behave like this country is lawless. Additionally the other reason behind the members-only is that it may discourage the determination of our teens to kill off as many brain cells as they can using dope and thereby forcing them back to energy drinks mixed with whatever alcohol they can get their hands on.

Tourist can smoke Marijuana in coffee shop but note that from 01.01.12 is forbidden for tourist to smoke.

I cant really gove you an answer,but what I can give you is a way to a solution, that is you have to find the anglde that you relate to or peaks your interest. A good paper is one that people get drawn into because it reaches them ln some way.As for me WW11 to me, I think of the holocaust and the effect it had on the survivors, their families and those who stood by and did nothing until it was too late.