Amsterdam - Coffee House (not coffee); and the District

Recreation at will, so long as someone does not interfere with someone else. Users tolerated, dealers, not.  Focus on the regulation, the sources.  Monitoring, safety, health measures, not prohibition.

Users have access to soft drugs at controlled settings, free of contact with the hard users or dealers; such as at this "coffee house."  Users are not the target,  but producers and dealers are. Hard drugs are considered an unacceptable risk to society, but the softer ones not so.
Distinction between soft and hard drugs.

Here is a coffee house - remember that the name does not mean that coffee is sold there. It is a recreational substance establishment. All is relaxed about people's personal choices. A person is free to be responsible for himself, users are tolerated, pushers are not. We missed the Hash Museum. See www.hashmuseum.com/.

One of the sculpture lions outside the Rijksmuseum even had a joint in its mouth. Looked perfectly happy.

Hemp has been used for medicinal and other purpose for centuries - maybe the first reference is 8000 BC in Mesopotamia. For details on various categories of uses, see www.sdearthtimes.com/et0199/et0199s11. Examples: rope, materials for the Dutch sailing and shipping industries.

And in the District, many people are friendly, and wave from the windows when they get bored or just want some fun, and business gets conducted without the tawdry desperation we see here. Join the profession, leave, as you like. Other in the windows just are there, looking bored or tired. If she contracts an illness, I understand, she must stop and can take retirement with treatment and at subsidized housing. True? Regulation rather than prohibition? Up to the Powers, but information always helps. Check out your own.

How do we know this? Because we were going to church. This one.

We were going to the Museum Amstelkring - and it is in the District. It is an example (now museum) of a hidden church, necessary for the Roman Catholics when Catholicism was outlawed in the late 16th century. The church is splendid -- on a second and third floors of a house, spreading over two widths at those higher levels. The sanctuary is two floors high. See ://www.bma.amsterdam.nl/adam/uk/huizen/ozvb40i.html/ for Our Lord In The Attic.

We would have walked around the District anyway.

And in the District, many people are friendly, and wave from the windows when they get bored or just want some fun, and business gets conducted without the tawdry desperation we see here. Join the profession, leave, as you like. Other in the windows just are there, looking bored or tired.Some of the best-humored seemed to be the older purveyors - friendly waves. With skills, they can continue for years: just pay the rent. Far less fear for everyone on the street, including the pedestrians. See ://www.answers.com/topic/prostitution-in-the-netherlands/