Sex, Drugs and Second Thoughts

The vacation sort of just flew by

After dropping their packs at a hostel, Ryan Ainsworth and his buddy Richie Bendelow found a shop selling 500 herbal potions that promised to make them high and happy in 500 ways. But the young British tourists went right for the hallucinogenic mushrooms, packaged in clear plastic containers just like the ordinary ones at the greengrocer back home.

The pair took the tips sheet that advised first boiling the mushrooms into a tea "to speed up the effect." It also warned against taking them with hard drugs or alcohol but that "a marijuana joint is no problem and can give you a positive, relaxing feeling."

These guys didn't need advice -- they'd cut loose before in this haven of libertine values and elegant canals. After forking over $24, they made their way to the lush Vondelpark and between them gobbled up the entire box.

The next day, as they were leaving a coffeehouse where they'd bought half a gram of marijuana, they had little to say about the afternoon in the park. "Hey, it's holiday in Holland," said Ainsworth, a 22-year-old kayaking instructor. "Anything goes."

But it may be last call for drugs, sex and live-and-let-live in the Netherlands, one of the most famously broad-minded countries in the world.

Prostitution, abortion, euthanasia, same-sex marriage and magic mushrooms have long been legal here, and soft drugs such as marijuana are technically illegal but are sold with official sanction in small amounts in "coffeehouses." In recent years, however, uneasiness over an influx of Muslim and black immigrants as well as a lifestyle that many believe has gone too far have shifted the Dutch mood away from tolerance and infinite permissiveness.

In 2006, parliament stopped coffeehouses from selling alcohol if they sell marijuana; now, legislators are negotiating to have them located at least 250 yards from schools. This year, a ban on the sale of hallucinogenic mushrooms goes into effect.

"I've been in this business 15 years, and we have never felt so much pressure," said Olaf Van Tulder, manager of the Green House, part of a chain of popular coffeehouses owned by a Dutchman whom High Times magazine has dubbed the "King of Cannabis."
LA Times