Columnist Ron Kantowski: Euro 2000 tournament still smokin'

Ron Kantowski's column appears Thursday. Reach him at [email protected] or 259-4088.

The Euro 2000 soccer championships have literally gone to pot.

This year's tournament, second only to the World Cup in popularity in soccer-mad Europe, is being held in Belgium and The Netherlands, where smoking marijuana is legal.

However, the Dutch coffee houses where pot is openly sold and smoked had to win a political war to remain open during the tournament which began last weekend.

During the squabble, the marijuana growers and merchants apparently convinced Amsterdam officials that they should not only allow the pot shops to stay open during the soccerfest, but that they should encourage fans of a sport known for its rowdy fans -- and that's putting it mildly -- to patronize them.

"Fortunately, we have made them see sense," said Roland Dam, founder of Amsterdam's Cannabis College (isn't that where Snoop Doggy Dogg got his degree?), which studies the industrial, medicinal and recreational uses of marijuana.

"We are not saying that fans should come and smoke," Dam stressed. "But we are saying that smoking a joint is likely to contribute towards a peaceful tournament. People will be very relaxed, they will be more objective about the games and they will also become a bit more tolerant if their team loses."

Dam may have a point. After England, which leads the free world in hooliganism, blew a 2-0 lead to Portugal and lost 3-2 in its opening-round game, nobody got shot, stabbed or so much as whacked upside of the head with an empty pint of Guinness.

It makes you wonder how sports might change on this side of the pond if marijuana came in packs instead of little plastic baggies.

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