Coffee shops will survive the smoking ban

Many countries are banning tobacco smoking in restaurants, cafes, bars and public spaces to protect the non-smokers from the second-hand effects. These bans have provoked all kind of debates all around the world not just by the tobacco producers or the smokers themselves, but also by those who “prefer to roll their marijuana with tobacco into joints.”
In Amsterdam, soft drugs are legally banned, but, under a policy of tolerance, buyers are allowed to have certain amount of cannabis in their possession. Coffee shops are the places where this popular leaf may be purchased and consumed, being able to sell up to five grams of marijuana per person per day. Many people, especially Europeans, would rather mix the marijuana with some tobacco before smoking. So, could a smoking ban spell the end of Amsterdam’s world famous coffee shops, where smoking cannabis is one of the main attractions? Probably not.

“The clientele who have been coming to coffee shops to buy and inhale cannabis are flexible enough to find a way around any ban on smoking the tobacco products they routinely mix with marijuana resin or leaf in rolled paper joints” says local conservative politician and coffee shop owner Michael Veling.
In Netherlands, a tobacco-smoking ban could come into force at the start of 2008, but most of the more than 700 coffee shops “would not even be affected by it anyway” he says, because “they resemble cannabis drive-ins, where people queue in front of counters, buy and leave”.

Filed Under Diversity, Modern Life, Wondering, World Health