Poof! Goes the magic mushroom
2007-10-12 14:05
The Hague - The Dutch authorities agreed on Friday to ban the sale of magic mushrooms, a move sure to annoy many tourists visiting the Netherlands, known for its liberal drugs policies.
The Dutch health and justice ministers said on Friday that they have agreed to change the drugs laws to ban the sale and cultivation of hallucinogenic mushrooms.
The move comes during an ongoing debate in the Netherlands about the safety of the so-called magic mushrooms after a number of incidents involving tourists who had taken them.
"We saw a rise in the incidents with paddo's (hallucinogenic mushrooms) recently from 55 reported by the emergency services in 2004 to 128 last year. This year we already had over a hundred incidents reported, mainly in Amsterdam," health ministry spokesperson Karin Donk said.
In March a 17-year-old French girl died after she threw herself from an Amsterdam bridge. She had eaten magic mushrooms, but no formal link was established between the two occurrences.
There have been several other incidents with tourists who had a bad trip on the mushrooms and became aggressive or paranoid.
"We expect the ban to come into effect in the next few months after it has been approved by the parliament and the senate," Donk said.
After the incident with the French tourist a majority in the Dutch parliament had called for a total ban on magic mushrooms.
The change in the Dutch drug laws would mean that both growing and selling magic mushrooms will be banned and so-called smartshops that are selling them will be closed down, Donk said.
The Dutch association of smartshops, VLOS, said on Friday that they were stunned by the move.
"This is a problem that is confined to Amsterdam and specifically the city centre there and now smartshops all over the Netherlands are becoming victims of this, and that is sad," VLOS spokesperson Paul van Oyen told AFP.