The Netherlands have got more to offer than weed

Hello, Can you maybe introduce yourself and tell a little bit about you?

Hi, I’m Karen, I’m 22 years old and I live in the Netherlands.

There are many points of view about the Netherlands. What, in your opinion, makes your country different from other European countries?
I think we are a really tolerant country. We don’t judge about a lot of things, and we think that everybody can just do whatever they want to, within the boundaries of the law of course.

As we know, a big part of your country votes for a right party. At the same time, weed, gay marriages and abortion are legalized. How does that work in everyday life?
The people in my country who vote right, including myself, often do that because we think liberty is a really important thing. A great part of the population has the opinion that everybody can and should make their own luck, and not have to pay a lot for people who don’t want to work, for example. In the Netherlands, everybody can study as long as they want and the government pays a big part of it, also you don’t have to be workless, there are enough jobs. So if you are, its often because you don’t want to work, and the people who voted for a right party are trying to avoid that half of their salary goes to people who don’t want to work. Of course it’s a different thing when people are disabled, nobody minds paying for them.

Because weed is legalized, I am curious about how you handle it in for example school, are there any campaigns or programs to make young people aware of the dangers of weed?
Yes, we have a lot of stuff like that, when you are in highschool, 13 or 14 years old, the teachers always explain to you what weed actually is and what it does to you. Because of the good information that is given to young people we don’t have a lot of problems with weed.

When you are on Erasmus, can you notice that in other countries the point of view is different with weed?
Yes, I can, but not because of the use of weed, it’s more that people keep asking me how often I smoke weed and if it’s so great that you can always smoke weed if you want to. One girl actually asked me if everybody smokes weed everyday and she thought that we don’t have alcohol in our country. It’s funny, but also kind of sad that everybody knows my country, for weed. We have a lot more to offer.

Thank you for the conversation, it was really interesting.
You are welcome, no problem.