Quote Originally Posted by Reefer Rogue
Good post.
Thanks!

Yeah, you're right most people won't hassle you if your on a bench (yes there should be more) having a smoke. But as I said, on Kalverstraat (really upmarket shopping street) you'd get the 'look'. Also the cops can arrest you for smoking outside of a coffeeshop. Remember, weed is actually still illegal in the Netherlands! It's just tolerated in certain areas and allowed to be sold in those places. They keep it technically illegal so that the cops can use discretion and still arrest people for it if they like. You could "technically" be arrested for having a single gram on you, if they wanted to. Although the public prosecutor would never take it to court.

For those that don't know these are the rules in NL:

1) You, the smoker, can have no more than 25 grams (law says 5 grams but reality says 25 grams) on your person at any time.
2) You can't legally buy more than 5 grams at a time and anyone selling you more is technically committing an offense
3) The coffee-shop (aka, the owner) is not allowed to have any more than 500 grams in their possession at any one time. (That means their home + their car + their coffee-shop = 500 grams MAX!!!)
4) The police can enter a coffee-shop and search it and everyone in it without a warrant.
5) Any found in these 'raids' with hard drugs will be charged and the coffee-shop closed for a week or so. Repeated instances will lead to the coffee-shop being shut forever.

The cops in Amsterdam are now following the mayors orders that no new shops are to be opened (can be sold and renamed/moved) and that any chance the police have to shut a place down, they are supposed to do that. There's no chance that the tolerance for cannabis will end but they are trying to round it all up into certain areas so the rest of the city can stop looking like a drugs haven as well.

Still, lovely place to live.

Fr33kMan


PS: To move there you need to be an EU citizen (or on 1 year working holiday for auz, nz, can or usa) and get a tax id from the belastingsdienst (tax office) for which you just show up with passport (EU) and its issued over the counter. To do it right you should also get a verbliefsdocument (residency permit) from the foreign police. But in reality just showing up with you EU passport will get you working.