John Sinclair: Amsterdam’s Cannabis Cup a tourist draw

[marmar]

from the Detroit Metro Times:



Amsterdam’s Cannabis Cup a tourist draw
And to think, Americans don’t want this source of tax revenue!

By John Sinclair
Published: November 23, 2011


Highest greetings from the Cannabis Cup in Amsterdam, where I'm enjoying the heady ambience of this society where they just don't care if you want to get high and where a couple thousand American youths are staggering around this week flashing their judge's badges and sampling the wares of the city's 250 coffee shops.

About 10 percent of Amsterdam's coffee shops pony up the entrance fees required to be showcased by High Times in its growing and consuming competition and thus gain the patronage of the American weed tourists during the week of the cup — and indeed all year round. The winning coffee shops get the business when the drug tourists come to town, the winning strains get purchased over the counter, and the winning seeds are prized by the international growing community.

Cannabis is a booming business in the Netherlands, and the High Times Cannabis Cup is its annual trade fair and exposition. But it's a world of good, clean fun too — after all, we're dealing with marijuana here! — and the businesspeople derive a lot more pleasure from their commercial activity than, say, their fellow merchants who are selling Buicks and Chevrolets.

Until fairly recently, the cannabis business has been allowed to grow and prosper, although the orthodox Christian convictions of the Queen and the governing class have conspired to keep marijuana from being declared fully "legal." Instead cannabis exists in what they call a "gray area" where it is perfectly OK for the consumer to possess and smoke weed and hashish in reasonable amounts and for the retailer to sell amounts of as much as 5 grams per customer over the counter in the coffee shops. ......(more)

The complete piece is at: http://metrotimes.com/mmj/amsterdam-s-cannabis-cup-a-tourist-draw-1.1236179

[Cirque du So-What]

1. Oh, *that* kind of cup

My first thought ran to a coffee- or tea-based beverage infused with hash...not that there's anything wrong with THAT either.

[hobbit709]

2. Friend of mine was one of the judges a few years back.