Lately I've been fascinated by the remarkable disparity between the progress America seems to be making toward legalizing marijuana and — dare we say it? — all recreational drugs utilized by U.S. citizens to get high on, and on the other hand the regressive direction taken by Canada and the European Union to reverse the positive effects of well-established social policies centered on tolerance and "harm reduction" for recreational drug users

The wildly successful medical marijuana movement in America has severely altered the public perception of pot smoking in a positive way and helped pave the path to the eventuality of full legalization — because, after all, why should we all have to be sick in order to get high without risking arrest?

While things look better for legalization in America than at any time in at least 50 years, a terrible turn to the idiotic right is being taken by the government of the Netherlands — the center of sane and sensible drug policy since the 1970s — and by the European Union itself.

In a disgusting new development, the EU's top court ruled Dec. 10 that Dutch authorities can bar foreigners from cannabis cafés as a legally acceptable measure to combat "drug tourism."

A 2005 law enacted in Maastricht, a town positioned near the Belgian and German borders, prohibits local coffee shops from admitting non-Dutch patrons. In September 2006, the city's mayor shut down the Easy Going coffee shop after it admitted two EU citizens who were not residents of the Netherlands.

http://metrotimes.com/columns/war-on-drug-tourism-1.1080687