Update your Cookie Settings to use this feature.
Click 'Allow All' or just activate the 'Targeting Cookies'
By continuing you accept Avaaz's Privacy Policy which explains how your data can be used and how it is secured.
Got it
We use cookies to analyse how visitors use this website and to help us provide you the best possible experience. View our Cookie Policy .
OK
A Petition from Respectful Tourist That Want To Keep Visiting Amsterdams Coffeeshops

A Petition from Respectful Tourist That Want To Keep Visiting Amsterdams Coffeeshops

1 have signed. Let's get to
50 Supporters

Close

Complete your signature

,
By continuing you agree to receive Avaaz emails. Our Privacy Policy will protect your data and explains how it can be used. You can unsubscribe at any time. If you are under 13 years of age in the USA or under 16 in the rest of the world, please get consent from a parent or guardian before proceeding.
This petition has been created by K. W. and may not represent the views of the Avaaz community.
K. W.
started this petition to
Burgemeester Femke Halsema
THE VISITORS PETITION   'All respectful and correct behaving tourists should be free to choose how and where to spend their time and how they experience their stay in Amsterdam as long as they act responsibly and won't cause any complaints with their visit of our amazing capital'    
- K.Willems founder Dutch Flowers Magazine, anthropologist and social designer, February 2021  

This petition is designed by a weekly visitor of the amazing city of Amsterdam, who lives in Maastricht. We are the right platform to bring together the people that made and will make memories in one of the most amazing cities in the world.

In the first place we want to make a statement:  Cannabis mainly makes the consumer calm and aware of his surroundings. consumption becomes much safer since the coffeeshops give good information about how the experience might affect them. 

The Motivation
We spoke with many Amsterdam citizens on the street (with precautionary measures against contamination). In opposition to everyday life in Amsterdam, these days it's easy to find locals due to the travel restrictions. We explored and examined what goes on in the local's minds. We realized fairly quickly that people miss the tourists in the first place, secondly that they almost didn't experience any problems regarding cannabis at all. and thirdly that the locals think the coffee shops are a big part of the identity and financial welfare in Amsterdam.  After 2 hours we found someone who had something negative to say, but that was mainly because he did not like the fact that he couldn't find a parking space, and he found out that he could daily since the travel restrictions.  

The founder of Dutch Flowers Magazine is born in Maastricht, one of the last city's that still implements the exclusion policy. Every time our friends or someone close walks over the boulevard, we get stopped and requested to buy weed with street dealers, we are not interested of course, but we found out the tourists get lured to parking lots and outskirts of the town to "seal the deal". after 7 years the guys still are active and since they don't carry anything on them, they can't be arrested. We lined up some of our arguments to explain our concern.  

Some of the arguments we thinks you should take into consideration based on the experience of 
Maastricht:  Effective practice example.  After all these years still, dozens of tourists try to enter all the shops in the hope someone makes a mistake and lets them in. If this would happen howsoever the shops would lose their permit in Maastricht.
Dealers are inventive and after all this time the rude approach is still going on in Maastricht, many girls feel unsafe walking alone in the streets, especially at night.  - Dealers sell without control and also hard drugs are on their menu, this hurts us as enthusiasts and patients the most.
 - Numbers get exchanged and the "transaction" happens through phone on a safer place next time
- The leftovers and bad stuff end up on the streets, this is the stuff that no one should consume and is truly harmful.

Amsterdam  - People won't check if Amsterdam changed the policy about cannabis before they travel, or they find out too late, this makes the experience less pleasurable especially if you worked hard and saved for a trip to this amazing city.
- Hotels are already worried people will consume in their hotel rooms.
- The safe and effective education to first-time cannabis users will be lost.
- Tourists will focus on other (public) areas where they can smoke.
- The quality control is gone when tourist are delivered to street dealers  
- We can imagine that in some eyes, it becomes attractive to consume in Amsterdam after a possible exclusion policy gets implemented, just like tourists do it now, only in the public domain to make the Amsterdam experience complete.
- As we find in Maastricht tourist are mostly unaware of the policy even after 7 years we see 100+ foreigners that get send away
- What will happen to the demand from visitors? Where will they find their satisfaction next?

Our recommended alternatives after visiting your city for 4 years almost every weekend are the following:
- Create a focus or peer group that can offer advice from multiple communities.
- Create multi-disciple groups with different professions to focus on the topics and offer you an advice
- Reach out to not native and native dutch students from multiple schools in the Netherlands to offer a bit of advice about the policy may be in the form of final research since the topic is so complex, this way you should be able to get a different perspective from youth as well.  
- Offer information and warnings about possible consequences before the tourist start to explore the city as well as during, there are many small changes we can implement for example: Airports can provide optional information for people who want to know more about their stay in Amsterdam the behavioral codes as well as the rules regarding consumption.  

Final word
 
Cannabis has proven its purpose over and over, we can see the legalization happening all over the world. we hope this message reaches the mayor of the city to make the statement that all the tourists that visit Amsterdam those who visit coffee shops and those who don't fell in love with the city the way she is!




Posted (Updated )