RS2 Maastricht, Marijuana And The European Dream

Anthony Sallemi

Professor Engel

MICROECONOMICS

9 September 2012

The podcast “Episode 395: Maastricht, Marijuana And The European Dream” is about a Dutch town named Maastricht. This is the town where the European leaders signed a treaty that would make the euro the currency of Europe. Maastricht is also a place where marijuana is sold legally at coffee shops. People from all around bordering towns would come to just get high and hang out, that was until the mayor said that Marijuana could not be sold to foreigners. The reason for this was the pot smokers would cause problems such as; littering and parking illegally. Coffee shops are starting to lose money quickly and customers, according to one of the shop owners he said that ninety three percent of sales come from foreign buyers. Citizens from Maastricht have started to buy their marijuana form drug dealers because these coffee shops are starting to tell users to sign documents to say they are members of these shops. The citizens want nothing to do with this because after they sign these documents it shows that these people are drug users when they just want it to be anonymous.

            After listening to the podcast I believe that the mayor is wrong in making a law that foreigners can’t purchase marijuana. Yes they can be a nuisance when they are high and cause problems but that shouldn’t be a reason to ban them from coming to Maastricht to get high. Citizens of this town can cause the same problems the foreigners do, littering and parking illegally can easily be enforced by law enforcement, to me there are more positives then negatives of foreign drug users and there are multiple secondary effects of this decision. These foreigners first of all would keep coffee shops in business while helping out other businesses in the area with these new customers, if there isn’t a reason for the tourist to come everyone in Maastricht loses out on business. It would keep money flowing in the town and not lose out on this great opportunity for business. The guidepost test of a theory is its ability to predict is a good example for this because the mayor thought he was doing something good for the town but at this time there have been more negatives then positives. All the town of Maastricht would have to do is strictly enforce littering punishment and parking illegally punishment to make sure people do what they are supposed to be doing. I personally believe that the mayor should not have banned marijuana for tourists.