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[Gattigap]

Originally posted by ironweed
They must be doing something right, because right now there are baying hordes of them milling around New York, roaming from Canal Street to upper Fifth Avenue, buying up everything in sight and laughing when they get their bar tabs. And I am not even mentioning the Canadians.

And what's worse, parts of Europe are reconsidering their positions on mindless excess.

• [I]t 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.

LAT