Amsterdam: Pot and Prostitution

Aside from the legalized or decriminalized or whatever, you can get pot there, aspect of Amsterdam it’s an incredibly beautiful, picturesque city. Stripped by canals, bridges, and great architecture the city could easily stand on it’s own if pot and prostitution weren’t legal. Now that you know there is more to the city than pot and prostitution, let’s get to what you want to know about Amsterdam… pot and prostitution.

The Red Light District is probably what brings in the most tourism in the city, and rightfully so, nowhere else in the world is the legalization of prostitution so successfully done as it is in Amsterdam. My first time in the city we naturally wanted to see what all the fuss was about. Walking into the district you instantly know you’re there by the abundance of red neon lights. I’d assumed the ladies would look like the kind you see in the states, hookers, cracky, nasty hookers. I couldn’t have been more wrong. Morality and stance aside, no one will argue that the women working there are not drop dead gorgeous. The district is really weird, it’s laid out in all windows, alleyway after alleyway of sliding glass windows, lined with Neon, red for ladies and blue for Trannies, so take care of your color blind and stupid friends. Often stacked 3 to 4 high the windows seemed to be based on looks, the hotter on ground level, the less the higher they go. They even have streets with larger women, ethnic women etc. It’s a really surreal feeling to see people categorized as product, but they’re doing this legally, supposedly on their own, taxed and tested and frankly I don’t care what someone else does. I never went inside any of the establishments, none of us did. But after walking around for about thirty minutes, pizza in hand, we all decided things were starting to make a lot of sense and that we‘d best probably leave. Oh, the pot, yeah they have pot there. But legal pot didn’t seem as surreal as legal prostitution, from what I hear it’s great pot, but if you live on the West Coast it’s no better, no worse.