On Tolerance

Apologies for a lack of activity over the last week or so, if anyone does actually take time to read my musings, I've been on holiday for the first time in a while, a wee jaunt to Amsterdam followed by a couple of days in Germany. Twas my first time in that tolerant, Lutheran land, and like most visitors I left mightily impressed. The people are great, the city unlike anything, I guess, this side of Venice, and the museums aren't too bad either.

But this is not a cultural blog, and I am no closer to being a culture vulture than I am securing a transfer to Real Madrid, even if I was rather taken by Vincent Van Gogh's chinese period, if that's what it was called. My cultural highlight was still looking at all the swords and guns in the Rijksmuseum, which is still only partially open, althought they still have all the Rembrandts and Vermeers out on show, which aren't bad either...

Neen, the point of this post was a rather obvious one. As a first time visitor to Amsterdam, you can't help but be distracted by the drugs and the hoeren, as they say in Dutch. I was left rather cold by De Wallen, not sure whether to get all indignant about the whole thing, or to salute the Dutchies for giving them somewhere safe to go, but the coffee shops certainly made more of an impression. While I did only spend the obligatory hour or so in one (smoking, but not inhaling of course) my wee pinko knee-jerk 'free the weed' impulses were strengthened. It was fascinating to see all the folk coming in and buying themselves a wee lump of hash for the evening, like it were a couple of tinnies. Scary looking guys who I'm sure could hold their own in Possil or Pilton were buying their dope from a state-licensed business, and not some unsavoury character who would happily sell them something a wee bit more potent.

For me, it's a no-brainer. Amsterdam is not Babylon, and its burghers are great people who seem to have a rather high opinion of Scotland, although I'm sure that was them just being friendly. The war on drugs is never going to be won, and while there is a growing body of evidence to suggest that excessive cannabis use is more harmful than previously thought, there is little point in any government wasting the money they do in the pursuit of something which causes harm only to a small minority, when they could control its sale, and take the profits away from the dealers and put them into the public purse.

I know it won't change, however. It would take an extremely foolhardy politician from any of the mainstream parties to broach the subject, and thats not going to happen.