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Harrison Schroeder
Professor Chris Reider
Eng. 101
22 November, 2016
Taking the High Road to Economic Gains
The word "tourist" to some of us brings visions of Hawaiian shirts, Bermuda shorts,
sunscreen and family trips to Disneyland. Tourism is generally associated with traveling to visit
museums, beaches, exotic locations, historical sites, and even trendy restaurants. However, there
is another form of tourism on the rise. This tourism is known as drug tourism. This type of
vacationing usually consists of the tourist traveling to a country where they can find unique
region-specific drugs or countries where drug laws are not strictly enforced or in some cases
drugs are legal or government regulated. Although many of the drugs tourists will take on these
excursions can have some serious long-term and in some cases, deadly consequences, the effects
on the local cities and towns can be positive, especially those in which drugs are government
regulated, through lower crime rates and economic growth.
Drug travel takes place all over the world and in all different type locations, ancient and
modern, civilized and remote. One such place is the ancient jungles of Peru, where shamans or
medicine men/women will serve you a thick hallucinogenic brew known as Ayahuasca. This
ancient concoction is made of boiled local vines, and is said to induce some sort of spiritual
awakening in those who drink it.
The Ayahuasca experience is becoming so popular the famous comedian Chelsea
Handler featured it on her Netflix show series Chelsea Does. In the show, she, along with two
of her friends traveled to Peru and sat in a candle lit hut with a shaman guide. Her, her friends, a
translator, and a film crew to document the entire experience. An otherwise obscure Peruvian

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village virtually unknown to most has now made its way into the living rooms of Americans and
other westerners as a form of advertisement for an experience to be had, sure to boost travel and
thus provide economic growth:
Despite the risks, foreigners are converging on Iquitos, a city of 500,000 in Peru's
northeastern Amazon, paying up to $2,500 a week to drink the elixir. Carmen Rojas, the
head of the local tourism office, says that she knows of 22 certified jungle lodges that
offer Ayahuasca. But local tour operators speak of dozens more, including almost 100
Ayahuasca centers along one 60-mile stretch of highway. They estimate that as many as
80,000 people a year come to Iquitos for Ayahuasca (Dube par.18).
We see here that an extremely large number of people travel from all over the world to get their
hands on this elixir. The effect of this type of traffic is large amounts of money being filtered
into the community, therefore aiding in the climb out of poverty in these run-down towns.
One of the most well-known drug destinations is Amsterdam, Netherlands. People from
around the world are drawn to Amsterdam due to its highly lenient laws regarding drugs, the ease
of accessibility within the country, and its desirable modern culture. In 1976 the Netherlands
decriminalized possession of less than five grams of cannabis, anything over that limit is illegal.
Since then one and a half million tourists visit the country each year to partake in the drug (The
Times par. 5). Government in Amsterdam continues to take step to make drugs safer and prevent
drug related deaths in their communities. There are labs you can legally take your drugs, here
they will test them for any impurities or poisons.
A possible argument against this type of tourism is that it promotes drug use with the
local communities. This statement is not necessarily true. A study in 1997 showed that 44% of all
drug users in Amsterdam were foreigners who traveled there to take advantage of the lenient

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drug laws (Grapendaal, Leuw, and Nelen 81). All drugs are not legal in Amsterdam as noted
earlier only less than 5 grams per person and mostly sold in coffee shops around the city.
The United States has also recently been reforming drug laws. Medical Marijuana is
allowed in 28 states and recreational use of marijuana in Colorado, Alaska, Oregon, and
Washington. Since Colorados legalization of marijuana in 2012, the flow of tourism to
Colorado has skyrocketed. The Colorado Tourism Office on Wednesday reported that 77.7
million visitors to the state in 2015 spent an all-time high of $19.1 billion, generating $1.13
billion in state and local taxes, an increase of almost 7 percent from 2014 (Blevins par. 2). In
this article, we can see positive and highly lucrative effects of drug tourism.
State regulation and dispensaries has eliminated or at least greatly reduced the role of
illegal dealing in these states. Studies have also been done to disprove the gateway drug
theory. As stated by Reinarman in a study comparing the decriminalized Amsterdam to the
criminalized city of San Francisco, there was not only a lower lifetime use of marijuana in
Amsterdam, (34.5%) versus San Francisco (62.5%), but also a significantly lower lifetime use of
other illicit drugs. When asked if participants could obtain those illicit drugs through their
marijuana sources only 15% of Amsterdam residents said they could obtain harder drugs through
their source, where as 51% of San Francisco residents said their supplier could get them harder
drugs (Reinarman 28). These statistics show that not only is drug use down when regulated the
illegal dealings which would contribute to lower crime rates.
Some impoverished countries are taking notice of the profit to be made off such tourism
are trying to legalize the sale of soft drugs to take advantage of this market. One such place is
the country already infamous for it marijuana use, Jamaica:

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Although legalization drives have scored major victories in recent months in places like
Colorado and Washington state, and the government of the South American nation of
Uruguay is moving toward getting into the pot business itself, the plant is still illegal in
Jamaica, where it is known popularly as ganja. Some would like to see that change, with
increasingly vocal advocates saying Jamaica could give its struggling economy a boost
by taking advantage of the fact the island is nearly as famous for its marijuana as for its
beaches, reggae music and world-beating sprinters. Justice Minister Mark Golding said
the government is aware of legalization efforts elsewhere, and called the issue "dynamic
and evolving quickly. We will be reviewing the matter in light of the recent
developments in this hemisphere," Golding said of decriminalization in an email to the
Associated Press. (McFadden par. 5)
Marijuana (Ganja) is almost synonymous with Jamaica thanks to Bob Marley and other reggae
artists. Ganja tours on Bob Marley's property is a popular tourist destination on the island. If
Jamaica decriminalizes the sale and use of marijuana it could greatly aid the financial situation in
this very impoverished tiny coastal island.
Although very controversial, this type of tourism is not unheard of. If you were to have
told a resident of New York City in the 1920s of a vacation where they could tour the region of
Northern California solely to drink wine and travel to Scotland to sample whiskey they too
would have found such tourism very scandalous. Today Napa Valley is one of the top tourist
destinations in this country and enjoys a very healthy economy. Drug tourism in some
destinations has proved bring in visitors by the droves and thus to stimulate the economy.
Although not without problems there is promise for the economy along with the regulation of

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government there is the possibility of lowering the crime rates by eliminating the illegal drug
dealers.

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Works Cited
Grapendaal, M., Ed Leuw, and J. M. Nelen. A World Of Opportunities : Life-Style And
Economic Behavior Of Heroin Addicts In Amsterdam. Albany: State University of New
York Press, 1995. eBook Collection (EBSCOhost). Web. 27 Nov. 2016.
Amsterdam drug tourists U-turn; The Netherlands. Times (London, England) 2 Nov. 2012: 46.
Academic OneFile. Web. 28 Nov. 2016.
Dube, Ryan. "Is Peru's Psychedelic Potion a Cure Or a Curse? Foreigners are Flocking to Try a
Traditional Brew Called Ayahuasca that some Say Eases Psychological Distress--but it
has Dangers, Too." Wall Street Journal (Online)Apr 29 2016. ProQuest. Web. 28 Nov.
2016
Blevins, Jason. "Colorado Breaks Tourism Record with 77.7 Million Visitors Spending $19.1
Billion." The Denver Post. N.p., 21 July 2016. Web. 28 Nov. 2016.
McFadden, David. "A Push to Mainstream Ganja Tourism; Jamaica has Long been a Mecca for
Pot Aficionados, but Making Marijuana Legal could Shake Up the Economy." Los
Angeles TimesSep 15 2013. ProQuest. Web. 28 Nov. 2016.
Reinarman, Craig. "Cannabis policies and user practices:Market separation, price, potency, and
accessibility in Amterdam and San Francisco." International Journal of Drug Policy
January 2009: 28-37.