You can toke, but you can't smoke, says the Dutch government, who has banned smoking tobacco in public places from July 1st. Amsterdam is known for its open culture towards cannabis and the notorious coffee shops where marijuana and hashish can be smoked legally.

So from next month onwards, if you want to smoke a joint it has to be pure and not mixed with tobacco. This seems quite ironical because in a restaurant people come to eat, in a cafe to drink and in a coffee shops mainly to smoke pot.

The ban on tobacco is presumably to protect employees from second-hand smoke, which makes them susceptible to diseases. Its a rather bizarre law, how could you smoke a joint, and not have tobacco in it? Employees at such coffee shops join the place knowing that there will be smoke in the air. In fact most of them are smokers. Out of fear that they will be out of business, owners of coffee shops have done something innovative. They have introduced a machine, that is like vaporisers sometimes used for medicinal purposes, works like a water pipe but without any combustion, and it produces a new kind of high.

Many European countries have banned smoking tobacco in public places, so Amsterdam is just following suit, but its also the only European country where marijuana is legal.

If the government is actually able to implement such a law, then there are chances that people would turn to hard drugs or chemicals or since tobacco is anyway harmful to health, it could also do them some good.

The country's 720 coffee shops sell everything from pre-rolled joints for 3.50 euros each to hashish for as much as 18 euros a gram. They also sell drinks, food and rolling papers, but of course large portion of income comes from marijuana. Lets wait and watch whether a country so liberal in many ways would spoil the spliff!

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Coffee shops will survive the smoking ban

Amsterdam Travel Guide