[ElProximo]

Originally Posted by Stu

Spoiler:

I don't even know where to start with that poorly worded diatribe of white noise.

Spoiler:

You start with 'hand waving' insults because you can't handle going back to the start:
Where you cherry-picked some statistics and added your own misinterpretations, opinions, added assertions, uncalled-for assertions and I called you on it.

I really would encourage you to research drug decriminalization in Portugal. It has been a massive, massive success and I'm not talking about sourcing your facts and figures from some New Age geocities website, I'm talking about hard, obvious data.

Fail.
I already caught you out on this. Remember this - your making the claim easy access is a CAUSE of reduced usage and abuse.
So picking the TOP example you can find doesn't do that when there is a number of countries with ZERO tolerance, strict law & order solution and they have LOW drug abuse.
Low drug use.
Some nearly non-existent drug use and abuse.
Sorry you don't understand why that blows your use of Portugal as something 'arguing for your claim',
but,
maybe you can go take courses on sociology and stats somewhere.

The Netherlands does have a noticeably low teenage rates of Cannabis use

No it doesn't.

and yes I am discounting tourists from that statistic.

Who said you get to discount them. Are they doing more drugs when they have easier access?

Dutch natives really don't take advantage of the lax laws as much as you would think. It's amazing watching you tear apart and make up amazing excuses for any statistic or factual piece of information someone throws your way.

I'm the Fact Protector here. Catching you trying to bluff opinion, drug propaganda, myths and abuse statistics.

No matter how visible junkies might be in concentrated cesspools in Amsterdam the simple fact is Dutch teens are less likely to use Cannabis than the average,

Ohhh but wait... YOU want to tell us that easy-access and availability causes LOWER drug use and abuse.
So YOU ought not try and use 'averages' but show where rural Dutch have worse problems. Those raised and living among Canabis Cafes ought to have less junkies right?
or what?

are less likely to use Heroin than the average and are less likely to die of a drug overdose. Less drug use. Less drug fatalities. It's there in countless studies. Countless studies.

Again, drug use and death are two different things. You can show that the Dutch's very high police presence and containment and surveillance of junkies = high resuscitation and rescue.
allowing junkies to live for many more years in parks getting high?

See how you 'state a fact' but you then mistakenly decide what it 'concludes' and what it 'means'?
stop that.

This also contradicts of all things a gateway drug hypothesis argument that you posed. The gateway drug argument has never been scientifically validated or accepted on any level. You will find the whole 'well they started on Cannabis' argument stems further back and that those type of statements could be converted to 'well they started on alcohol' or 'they started on cigarettes' even though making such declerations are still pointless and still without merit because only tiny minority of Cannabis users will happen to move on to harder drugs just like a tiny minority of drinkers will move on to harder drugs.

Smoking weed and getting high isn't a 'gateway'. It is arriving. It is drug use. Practicing drug use. to get high. Stoned. It might be the safest start.

The argument is without place anyway. Again you blame Cannabis use for leading Dutch teens to try Heroin and Crack but as I have already said and as has already been proven by countless studies and statistics Dutch teens are below the E.U. average for both Cannabis use and hard drug use.

No, they aren't especially low but you have to keep in mind weed smoking is all over the EU.
Rarely does anyone start with crack. They get baked on weed. Like the feeling of being high and work their way up.
Mind you.. prescription pills might be replacing marijuana as 'starter drugs' for teens.
BTW - why are you now limiting your group to teens anyways? Trying to hide something or what?

The only reason by the way the Dutch are experiencing border problems is because number one border countries themselves still maintain more archaic, behind the times drug laws that are not compatible with the more progressive Dutch policies and because number two the Dutch have not yet got the balls to go the full distance with liberal Cannabis laws.

So just to be clear on what you are saying here - the only reason other countries are complaining is simply because they won't revert their laws to old Dutch style laws.
Parents having problems with your kids bringing drugs home? Solve this by simply allowing it!
Then its no longer a problem see?

I bet you don't think that when some junkies decide to smash your car windows in for some crack.
But hey.. just give them crack and let them borrow your car! Problem solved!

They ignore Cannabis. This means they do not arrest you for it but they also do not control it, which they should. They do not control the supply. The supply is left to the hands of the cladestine, often criminal underground who are willing to kill the competition for profit because the market is unregulated.

So stop giving money to thugs and murderers and criminal organizations?
It really is that simple.

But the real hillarity of your pissant, warped diatribe comes when you declare that Cannabis is not a viable source of tax revenue. This is in complete contradiction with the words from the mouths of the Amsterdam city council who are against this bill, members of Dutch parliament past and present, and countless documented evidence.

Really? because I never seem to find any good figures on that. The weed itself and then the admin that goes into that. I don't care how much the coffee shop itself makes either. I mean the weed.

Have you any idea, any idea at all how much tax money the Dutch make from tourists coming over to smoke pot? It more than pays off the extra police - and I'm sure there arrest record for Cannabis related violence is just towering and towering, isin't it - and it doesn't need to pay off the system being in place like you said because it's costing the Dutch nothing save for police presence ignoring Cannabis. Verus billions other countries spend fighting it.

This is quite a great opinion. It's funny but I never see any really good figures on the tax revenue made from marijuana sales.

And that's me finished with you. You will no doubt find a way to continually subvert and distort whatever facts and figures I present to you which makes arguing with you a fucking fruitless endeavour. As we all well know you are completely incompatible with reality, completely incompatible with logic, and quite possibly just a small bit mad.

Nothing but opinions and assertions from you.

Any attempt I make at providing a coherent argument would no doubt be knocked down

You never built one. You just made opinions, assertions, misinterpretations of facts and 'conclusions' that were not called for.

Meanwhile, I live in the real world and dealt with drugs my entire life and have the misfortune of being stuck in that **** city full of drug addicts and wasteful hippies and muslims doing nothing but turn the original culture (nearly gone now) into a piss tank.

I can tell you this - getting rid of those old laws and progressing this way MIGHT actually make me consider visiting that ****hole again one day. At least they are on the right track.
Forward.