Who's game is it, anyway?
**The names of the organizations and events have been redacted to comply with the *censorship* employed by 420 Magazine administrators. You’ll have to remain in the dark as to what the event was and who the sponsors were.**
The recent cannabis trade fair held in Amsterdam during the week of November 20th to 25th was important for a couple of reasons. First, it was the largest turnout in the history of the event, and second, it has been speculated that it will be the last event (but we now know it will be held again next year). Nobody expected what would transpire during the week of events which could make this, possibly, the most significant, and historical, in the lobby for cannabis rights in Europe . . . or did they?
Amsterdam’s recently changed cannabis laws, which prohibit the sale and distribution of cannabis to anyone other than official Dutch residents, will surely change the face of tourism in the Netherlands. The laws were meant to be enforced in January 2012, but that deadline has since been extended. The current enforcement date is slated for January 2015. The reason for the extension is debated, but I suspect it was because Amsterdam applied for exception to the new law, and less than a year was (legally) too short a time frame to meet all the application processes necessary for an appeal – the extension gives them enough time to officially appeal for exception to the law.
This change in the law has been looming for more than 10 years, and Germany has sat poised to take over the cannabis tourism trade from the Netherlands. The buzz in the German Cannabis Lobby is that the stand-off between the two countries has its roots in economic competition, although it’s rarely argued that way. The Netherlands has been slow to vote the bill into a law because they haven’t wanted to loose the cannabis tourism trade to Germany, and Germany didn’t want to enact laws for the sale of cannabis unless their fair neighbors were no longer competition for the trade. Now there is a shift in process and this German resident and cannabis consumer, living in a city with the 2nd largest red-light district in Europe, and surely the test city for new coffee shops, is intently watching the progress of this transition.
For the first time in 24 years, the annual cannabis trade fair was subject to police action. On Wednesday, November 23rd, shortly before 4:20 pm, police quietly and quickly entered the exhibition hall, stationing themselves two per booth, and separating vendors from participants. The numbers are different all over the media, but I would wager about 200 police were employed for this action. The vendor and booth attendants seemed rather calm, and on the next day of the trade fair I asked, and yes, they knew about the raid in advance. Mixed were the reported forewarning times which ranged from 20 minutes to 2 hours, and in two cases, no advanced warning was reported.
There was a very slow and gentle (and friendly) herding of the participants toward the main front exit, and after most of the hall was cleared of (400-600) participants, the announcement came. We were told the raid was being conducted under the Opium Act of 2001, and that we will be searched. It was a carefully scripted announcement, never telling the crowd of their rights, or not to worry, only that “participants are not the target of the raid”. The raid had nothing to do with opium, rather the suspicion of quantities of cannabis above what is allowed under law, quantities which are set forth in the Opium Act. An individual is allowed to carry 5 grams, and vendors 500 grams. After my search, it was glaringly clear that the target of the raid was not the convention participant. Evidently some plain clothed police had been there the day before and observed some infractions of the law, as well as illegal sale of cannabis at the trade fair. I question the latter, because I can’t imagine anyone who would buy/sell products at a trade fair, where the products are being given away, generously, for free.
I was at the end of the front half of the crowd being tightly corralled at the front entrance, and the feeling in the crowd, perhaps not surprisingly, was pretty relaxed. There were a few people who felt they needed to smoke what they had, and one guy was busy destroying a huge handful of hash by crumbling it to the floor. In my observation, those who expressed any amount of panic were notably younger participants. There were waves of information coming back to us through the crowd, mostly about what was happening beyond the small exit, all reports were false.
One at a time you were directed to an available officer for search. The officer asked if you had drugs. They asked you to give it to them. They looked through your bags, rather thoroughly, and searched your person. I asked the officer why the raid, and she said simply, “Because marijuana is legal only in the coffee shops and this venue is not a coffee shop.” Not exactly the truth…but I wasn’t going to get pedantic with her.
It would appear they were preying on the ignorant in the individual search. Most people handed over all their cannabis products, quickly and freely, not realizing that they need not surrender all, and they could can keep up to 5 grams. (Welcome to Europe people! They don’t confiscate what you are allowed to have!) I answered affirmative to the question of do I have any, and with the second question, of ‘may I have your drugs please?’ I stated that I had less than 5 grams. No further questions were asked, nor did she insist on my giving her the cannabis I admitted to having. She searched my bags, found my (un-hidden) meager amounts of herbs, and didn’t even make a move to take them. My rights were respected. No complaints here. The body search was such that I could have easily hidden amounts above the legal limit on my person without any risk discovery.
There were about 20 officers conducting searches, with 20 more working crowd control in the search area and in the hallway to the building exit. I read the next day that the exhibition hall was cleared in about 2 hours - I would imagine that is accurate. No police were outside directing us to leave immediately, and many people seemed to be content to hang around, while others opted to board the shuttle buses back into the city.
If they were indeed targeting a vendor based on quantity, I would suspect it was Big Buddha Seeds. The founder and owner was on stage just prior to the raids, lecturing about their genetics and small canna-business start-up, during which he bragged about still having more than a kilo of cannabis, in a woe-is-me manner, adding worry about how he will ever smoke so much on the 4th day of the 5-day trade fair, encouraging everyone to stop by. I suspect there is little coincidence that the raids came directly after his bragging.
The next day at the trade fair looked like a post apocalyptic scene. Approximately every 4th vendor booth was empty and attendance was very low – as was the spirit of the event. NorCal Genetics, Greenhouse Seeds, Big Buddha Seeds, and Incredibowl, to name a few, had vacated their booths and opted not to return to the fair on the 5th and final day.
I spoke to the Canadian ‘helping out’ at the Serious Seeds booth, who I also spoke to in the evacuation crowd the previous day. He said they didn’t have but a couple of minutes advanced warning, and that he heard that one vendor was, at least, detained. Every vendor with an excess of 500 grams of product, had all their cannabis products confiscated, and those who were in compliance were left alone. The official word from the event sponsor, was that there were no arrests made.
In my observation, the whole situation was very orderly…it’s not difficult to herd stoners, right? Nobody made a scene. It was more of an inconvenience to participants than anything else. Everything was about as cool and calm as it could ever be. It wasn’t fun anymore, but nobody seemed actually angry. On the shuttle back into Amsterdam, the Europeans still had their products, whereas the Americans, Canadians, and English did not, which I think is evidence that the police were counting on many people not knowing their rights under the law.
The buses were redirected to the Amstel Station, instead of the usual drop off in front of the Victoria Hotel across from the Central Station. When the driver asked why, he was told that there was a risk that the police would be waiting at the drop-off point to further delay participants exiting the purple, hot-boxed, buses, thus further delaying the transport of participants away from the venue.
The 5th day of the trade fare the buses also behaved differently. I was on the second bus going to the venue at the start of the day. We took a different route to the venue, and were dropped off on the far side of the country club restaurant (the venue was a hall at a tennis/sports club, about 5 km outside of the city), whereas previously we were dropped off directly at the exhibition hall entrance. I suspect having a large bus load of people walk past the country club entrance every 15 minutes was meant to annoy someone, and possibly an indication of the relationship between the sponsor and the venue. Another speculation is that there was a lingering issue with the participants and the smoking going on the bus (the bus is not a coffee shop).
Two emails from the event sponsor were sent out after the raids, I got them, and here they are for you:
1. Email, Nov, 24, 2011, 20:16
2. Email, Nov. 24, 2011, 21:59
The announcement during the raid was that it was violations of the Opium act, but officially it was a misunderstanding. I’m of the opinion that when a “misunderstanding” is the official reason for police raids, clearly PR-spin, I can’t help but wonder who orchestrated the raid.
Was it the Dutch government making a feeble show of force in support of the new restrictive laws at an event which will make headlines only in it’s target group, or was it the Cannabis Lobby trying to create a scenario they can later sensationalize and use as an example to repeal the new restrictive laws?
Someone is playing the politics game, and we’ll have to wait until the proverbial smoke clears before we know who will use this move to their advantage.
3. Email, Nov. 27, 2011, 21:59
**The names of the organizations and events have been redacted to comply with the *censorship* employed by 420 Magazine administrators. You’ll have to remain in the dark as to what the event was and who the sponsors were.**
The recent cannabis trade fair held in Amsterdam during the week of November 20th to 25th was important for a couple of reasons. First, it was the largest turnout in the history of the event, and second, it has been speculated that it will be the last event (but we now know it will be held again next year). Nobody expected what would transpire during the week of events which could make this, possibly, the most significant, and historical, in the lobby for cannabis rights in Europe . . . or did they?
Amsterdam’s recently changed cannabis laws, which prohibit the sale and distribution of cannabis to anyone other than official Dutch residents, will surely change the face of tourism in the Netherlands. The laws were meant to be enforced in January 2012, but that deadline has since been extended. The current enforcement date is slated for January 2015. The reason for the extension is debated, but I suspect it was because Amsterdam applied for exception to the new law, and less than a year was (legally) too short a time frame to meet all the application processes necessary for an appeal – the extension gives them enough time to officially appeal for exception to the law.
This change in the law has been looming for more than 10 years, and Germany has sat poised to take over the cannabis tourism trade from the Netherlands. The buzz in the German Cannabis Lobby is that the stand-off between the two countries has its roots in economic competition, although it’s rarely argued that way. The Netherlands has been slow to vote the bill into a law because they haven’t wanted to loose the cannabis tourism trade to Germany, and Germany didn’t want to enact laws for the sale of cannabis unless their fair neighbors were no longer competition for the trade. Now there is a shift in process and this German resident and cannabis consumer, living in a city with the 2nd largest red-light district in Europe, and surely the test city for new coffee shops, is intently watching the progress of this transition.
For the first time in 24 years, the annual cannabis trade fair was subject to police action. On Wednesday, November 23rd, shortly before 4:20 pm, police quietly and quickly entered the exhibition hall, stationing themselves two per booth, and separating vendors from participants. The numbers are different all over the media, but I would wager about 200 police were employed for this action. The vendor and booth attendants seemed rather calm, and on the next day of the trade fair I asked, and yes, they knew about the raid in advance. Mixed were the reported forewarning times which ranged from 20 minutes to 2 hours, and in two cases, no advanced warning was reported.
There was a very slow and gentle (and friendly) herding of the participants toward the main front exit, and after most of the hall was cleared of (400-600) participants, the announcement came. We were told the raid was being conducted under the Opium Act of 2001, and that we will be searched. It was a carefully scripted announcement, never telling the crowd of their rights, or not to worry, only that “participants are not the target of the raid”. The raid had nothing to do with opium, rather the suspicion of quantities of cannabis above what is allowed under law, quantities which are set forth in the Opium Act. An individual is allowed to carry 5 grams, and vendors 500 grams. After my search, it was glaringly clear that the target of the raid was not the convention participant. Evidently some plain clothed police had been there the day before and observed some infractions of the law, as well as illegal sale of cannabis at the trade fair. I question the latter, because I can’t imagine anyone who would buy/sell products at a trade fair, where the products are being given away, generously, for free.
I was at the end of the front half of the crowd being tightly corralled at the front entrance, and the feeling in the crowd, perhaps not surprisingly, was pretty relaxed. There were a few people who felt they needed to smoke what they had, and one guy was busy destroying a huge handful of hash by crumbling it to the floor. In my observation, those who expressed any amount of panic were notably younger participants. There were waves of information coming back to us through the crowd, mostly about what was happening beyond the small exit, all reports were false.
One at a time you were directed to an available officer for search. The officer asked if you had drugs. They asked you to give it to them. They looked through your bags, rather thoroughly, and searched your person. I asked the officer why the raid, and she said simply, “Because marijuana is legal only in the coffee shops and this venue is not a coffee shop.” Not exactly the truth…but I wasn’t going to get pedantic with her.
It would appear they were preying on the ignorant in the individual search. Most people handed over all their cannabis products, quickly and freely, not realizing that they need not surrender all, and they could can keep up to 5 grams. (Welcome to Europe people! They don’t confiscate what you are allowed to have!) I answered affirmative to the question of do I have any, and with the second question, of ‘may I have your drugs please?’ I stated that I had less than 5 grams. No further questions were asked, nor did she insist on my giving her the cannabis I admitted to having. She searched my bags, found my (un-hidden) meager amounts of herbs, and didn’t even make a move to take them. My rights were respected. No complaints here. The body search was such that I could have easily hidden amounts above the legal limit on my person without any risk discovery.
There were about 20 officers conducting searches, with 20 more working crowd control in the search area and in the hallway to the building exit. I read the next day that the exhibition hall was cleared in about 2 hours - I would imagine that is accurate. No police were outside directing us to leave immediately, and many people seemed to be content to hang around, while others opted to board the shuttle buses back into the city.
If they were indeed targeting a vendor based on quantity, I would suspect it was Big Buddha Seeds. The founder and owner was on stage just prior to the raids, lecturing about their genetics and small canna-business start-up, during which he bragged about still having more than a kilo of cannabis, in a woe-is-me manner, adding worry about how he will ever smoke so much on the 4th day of the 5-day trade fair, encouraging everyone to stop by. I suspect there is little coincidence that the raids came directly after his bragging.
The next day at the trade fair looked like a post apocalyptic scene. Approximately every 4th vendor booth was empty and attendance was very low – as was the spirit of the event. NorCal Genetics, Greenhouse Seeds, Big Buddha Seeds, and Incredibowl, to name a few, had vacated their booths and opted not to return to the fair on the 5th and final day.
I spoke to the Canadian ‘helping out’ at the Serious Seeds booth, who I also spoke to in the evacuation crowd the previous day. He said they didn’t have but a couple of minutes advanced warning, and that he heard that one vendor was, at least, detained. Every vendor with an excess of 500 grams of product, had all their cannabis products confiscated, and those who were in compliance were left alone. The official word from the event sponsor, was that there were no arrests made.
In my observation, the whole situation was very orderly…it’s not difficult to herd stoners, right? Nobody made a scene. It was more of an inconvenience to participants than anything else. Everything was about as cool and calm as it could ever be. It wasn’t fun anymore, but nobody seemed actually angry. On the shuttle back into Amsterdam, the Europeans still had their products, whereas the Americans, Canadians, and English did not, which I think is evidence that the police were counting on many people not knowing their rights under the law.
The buses were redirected to the Amstel Station, instead of the usual drop off in front of the Victoria Hotel across from the Central Station. When the driver asked why, he was told that there was a risk that the police would be waiting at the drop-off point to further delay participants exiting the purple, hot-boxed, buses, thus further delaying the transport of participants away from the venue.
The 5th day of the trade fare the buses also behaved differently. I was on the second bus going to the venue at the start of the day. We took a different route to the venue, and were dropped off on the far side of the country club restaurant (the venue was a hall at a tennis/sports club, about 5 km outside of the city), whereas previously we were dropped off directly at the exhibition hall entrance. I suspect having a large bus load of people walk past the country club entrance every 15 minutes was meant to annoy someone, and possibly an indication of the relationship between the sponsor and the venue. Another speculation is that there was a lingering issue with the participants and the smoking going on the bus (the bus is not a coffee shop).
Two emails from the event sponsor were sent out after the raids, I got them, and here they are for you:
1. Email, Nov, 24, 2011, 20:16
2. Email, Nov. 24, 2011, 21:59
The announcement during the raid was that it was violations of the Opium act, but officially it was a misunderstanding. I’m of the opinion that when a “misunderstanding” is the official reason for police raids, clearly PR-spin, I can’t help but wonder who orchestrated the raid.
Was it the Dutch government making a feeble show of force in support of the new restrictive laws at an event which will make headlines only in it’s target group, or was it the Cannabis Lobby trying to create a scenario they can later sensationalize and use as an example to repeal the new restrictive laws?
Someone is playing the politics game, and we’ll have to wait until the proverbial smoke clears before we know who will use this move to their advantage.
3. Email, Nov. 27, 2011, 21:59
