Reefer Madness

The logistical problems of running a high traffic "coffee shop" in Holland:

Mayor Jan Lonink of the southwestern town of Terneuzen says the Dutch policy of tolerating the sale of cannabis in so-called coffee shops is a failure.

"You can only tolerate something when it is small or temporary. But this is so big, so systematic and so long lasting. We lose our credibility as a society".

He made his remarks in connection with recent developments at Checkpoint, a mega coffee shop visited by an average 2,900 visitors a day, many of them from neighbouring Belgium and France. Last week, police seized 160 kilogrammes of marijuana in raids on the coffee shop and 13 storage locations. At present, Dutch rules allow coffee shops to have 500 grams of marijuana on the premises.

Mr Lonink says that with nearly 5,000 customers a day at the weekend, Checkpoint must have a stock of nearly 25 kilogrammes, "which is only possible if the coffee shop has ties with organised crime". Mr Lonink supports the existence of coffee shops but argues that the current policy ignores the reality of drug tourism in border regions. He argues for experiments with regulated marijuana cultivation under government supervision to eliminate the role played by organised crime.

"But the cabinet is only interested in avoiding diplomatic incidents".

Contrary to widespread belief, marijuana is not legal in The Netherlands. Possession in small amounts is still a misdemeanor and possession of large amounts is prosecuted as a crime. The existence of coffee shops results from an understanding of non-enforcement, not legality.

Insanely, while the sale of marijuana is tolerated, there is no program to grow it legally. This means that coffee shops have to procure it from organized crime networks; it's the only way to maintain a steady supply.

I understand that there are problems with international law in having a state-sponsored grow operation, but the current system is nuts. It's not much better in Canada. The United States spends millions and millions of dollars a year on drug law enforcement and has among the highest rates of drug use in the industrialized world.

I wonder if we'll ever get over our outdated and ineffective attitude towards drugs. Regulated production and sale, as with tobacco and alcohol, is really the only way to get on top of the problem and keep the profits out of the pockets of criminals. I think.

April 4: Potemkin Venice

The train ride to Venice was about 2 hours. On the way I chatted with a very nice gentleman from Rome. I actually met a lot of really nice local people on the trains in Italy.


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This is what it looks like when you step out of the train station.



Venice is one of the most famous cities in the world, and indeed, I've never been anywhere quite like it. The city lies across 118 small islands separated by canals. There is no method to the madness; the city is basically a gigantic maze, and the only way you could ever find your way around reliably is by memorizing buildings and pathways.

This is the street that led to our hotel. (Quite a shitty hotel, as it turned out.)



We spent our day and a half in Venice basically just exploring the streets, making our way lazily from landmark to landmark. It's a city made for meandering.







After some walking, and having no clue where we were, we emerged out of the alleyways into a large body of water. We knew there was a grand canal that runs through the middle of the city, but this seemed too wide.

We soon solved the mystery: we were on the edge of the city, looking out at another large island that contains a different city.





It took a bit of work, but I eventually oriented us on the map and we found our way to the grand canal. There are three--only three!--bridges that cross this central waterway, so they are all very busy. This is one of them; you can see another one in the very first picture.



This is looking down the grand canal from the bridge.



We continued to explore the streets.

I can't tell you how strange Venice is to walk around in. I've now been to a lot of places that are big tourist destinations, but I was always strongly aware that we were in a community, a place where people lived and worked.

Venice feels as though it's entirely populated by tourists. Almost everyone had white skin, carried a map and a camera, and was speaking English as you walked by them. Seriously, almost everyone. It felt as though this was a place just built for people to come and visit, like a theme park or something.

It's a rather unpleasant feeling, actually.





However, this square was breathtaking to stumble into. It's the Piazza San Marco, the largest and most important square in the city. It's flanked by impressive buildings, including St Mark's Basilica. Napoleon used the buildings here as his royal palace when he conquered Italy. (Considering that he also used the palace at Dam Sqaure in Amsterdam, that gives you an idea of the scope of his empire).








We kept walking.

This is the third bridge that crosses the grand canal. It has the most character, with shops lining either side of it.





We spent most of the afternoon just wandering. There are obviously no cars in Venice, but there are also no bikes or roller blades allowed. You either walk or you boat. God help you if you're physically handicapped.




There are a lot of churches in Venice, but they don't stand out as much as ones in other cities.



There were always guys in striped uniforms calling out 'Gondola, Gondola' as you walked by. Gondola rides, however, are expensive. Really expensive.





We ate dinner here. The service was good but it was the worst grilled chicken I've ever had in my life, and I don't usually complain about food.



We went out to a live jazz show that night, which was really cool.



On our last morning we trekked out to the far shoreline, which has some open space and park. It's quite nice.




We took a trip in a vaporetti, or a water taxi, which is a much cheaper if less elegant ride than a gondola. Walking is alright, but Venice is best seen from the water.










Soon after lunch we got on a train and headed back for Milan, and from there back home. So ended our trip to Italy.

Venice is one of those places that everyone should see at least once; there's just no other place that compares. That said, I wouldn't cry if I never made it back there again. I felt like a day or two walking around in the streets is enough.

Milan, Rome, Florence, and Venice. All in a week. We were ready for a rest!

April 3: Renaissance Romp

We devoted our last day in Florence to exploring the city itself.

I might as well start with the single most dominating structure in the entire city, the visually unforgettable Santa Maria del Fiore.



It's a gigantic cathedral, but it's the colourful exterior that really makes it stand out. Construction on it started in 1292 and lasted the better part of 200 years. It has the largest brick-and-mortar dome in the world.







Here's the picture from the day before again, up on the plaza looking down on the city. What other word can you use than dominating?



The streets around the cathedral that make up the historical center of Florence are narrow and winding, and full of shops and tourists. Florence has a population of about 400,000 but it feels like a town. If there were no tourists, you could describe it as sleepy.





The streets open up onto large squares from time to time. These squares are usually the site of a few large buildings and an open-air market. Most of the buildings are museums now.




The most significant of these square is the one below, the Piazza della Signoria.



For a long time Florence was ruled over by a few powerful families, each of whom had their own castle or palace. This square is the site of the Palazzo Vecchio, the Vecchio family palace. It's now an art museum.



The square today hosts a huge number of replica statues.




That one on the left above is probably the most famous sculpture ever made, and certainly the most famous penis. It's Michaelangelo's "David", sculpted in 1504.

It was first placed here at the entrance to the Palazzo Vecchio, but it was moved in 1873 to an art museum nearby for protection. A replica was built in its place.



The rest of the statues on the square are all vaguely homoerotic scenes of well-built naked men killing each other with clubs.







Florence is filled with art museums. This was the center of the Renaissance art world and home to both Michaelangelo and da Vinci, among many others. One of the galleries had a display of statues of Florence's better-known residents. I snapped a sample of them.







(For some reason the Florentians named many of their artists after the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles).

The city is split by the Arno River. It's beautiful, but like all beautiful things will kill you if you aren't careful. It has been the cause of numerous disastrous floods in Florence's history, the most recent one in 1966 when it left 5,000 families homeless and destroyed many pieces of art and history.




A famous bridge spans the river, the Ponte Vecchio, which is roughly 700 years old. It's lined with shops on both sides that are held up by stilts.

A tourist-heavy road leads up to the bridge and you hardly realize that you've stepped onto a bridge because the shops just continue. The first picture below is the street, the second is the bridge.




The bridge was orginally built to connect two palaces of powerful families. One was the Palazzo Vecchio, which you saw earlier, and other is the Palazzo Pitti, seen below.

When shops were first opened on the bridge they were mostly butcher shops. The families soon forced all these shops to close and brought in jewellery shops to make for a more pleasant commute. The jewellery shops remain there today.



This is the head of some guy who undoubtedly did a lot of really neat stuff.



At one point we set out in search of a well-known large covered market, supposedly full of produce, meat, and bread that would be good pickings for picnic food. We eventually found a street lined with hundreds of little stalls, reminiscent of the grand bazaar in Istanbul.




Finally we found the covered market.



One of the last things we did in Florence was search out a gelato place called Grom's. It had come highly recommended by the people on our bike tour as the best gelato in Florence (and therefore, the world). It was quite a bit of detective work to track the place down, but finally we found it.




Late that afternoon we boarded a train for Venice.