Amsterdam, a city long associated with relaxed weed rules, has been left out of a pilot experiment with legal cannabis sales now underway in the Netherlands. In a vote last week in the Netherlands’ lower house of Parliament known as the Tweede Kamer, lawmakers excluded Amsterdam from a list of cities to be added to the European country’s experiment with regulated cannabis cultivation and distribution. The Tweede Kamer also voted against an attempt by conservative lawmakers to halt the experiment, which will be expanded this summer to 10 cities across the Netherlands.

The experiment launched late last year in the Dutch cities of Breda and Tilburg. Under the pilot program, which will soon be launched in eight more cities, the government is regulating the cultivation and sale of recreational cannabis. 

Although the Netherlands in general and Amsterdam in particular are known for a pragmatically tolerant outlook on weed, cannabis is still illegal nationwide. Despite the prohibition, cannabis is easily available at so-called coffeeshops, which offer a range of weed products including flowers, joints and hash to adult customers. The coffee shops, which number approximately 565 nationwide, are supplied by underground growers who are generally allowed to operate without government interference.

Many government officials are concerned, however, that organized crime groups have taken over cultivation of much of the weed that ends up in coffeeshops in the Netherlands. This concern led to the country’s first experiment with regulated adult-use cannabis cultivation and distribution. 

The experiment began in December and is being rolled out in select municipalities under what the government calls a “closed coffeeshop chain experiment.” The initial phase of the experiment is expected to extend for six months in as many as 11 cities.

“During the startup phase, growers, coffeeshop owners, transporters and supervisors will gain experience with the supply and sale of regulated cannabis and its supervision, secure transport and the use of the track and trace system,” the Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport said in a statement, according to a report from the Associated Press.

Later this year, the Netherlands’ experiment with regulated cannabis will be expanded to the cities of Almere, Arnhem, Groningen, Heerlen, Voorne aan Zee (formerly named Hellevoetsluis), Maastricht, Nijmegen and Zaanstad. City leaders in Amsterdam hoped to join the experiment, despite some claims that doing so would make it easier for underage youth to get weed.

“The experiment will not make access to drugs easier for young people. It just means that the production and distribution will be removed from criminals” Amsterdam Mayor Femke Halsema told the publication NL Times, according to a report from MJBizDaily.

“This actually protects public health and facilitates enforcement policy. If you want to control cannabis use better, you must also check the ‘back door.’”

Amsterdam’s bid to be included in the experiment was denied by a March 5 vote by the Tweede Kamer. While the proposal had the support of the Netherlands left-wing and centrist parties, conservatives in the far-right Christian SGP and the far-right nationalist PVV political parties defeated the bid by a vote of 78-72, according to a report from Forbes.

Amsterdam Exclusion ‘No Surprise’

The exclusion of Amsterdam from the cannabis legalization experiment was not unexpected, says Jason Adelstone, a senior associate attorney at the cannabis law firm Vicente LLP, where he focuses on federal and international policy.

“I am not surprised that members of the Netherlands Parliament opposed the proposal for allowing Amsterdam to join the Dutch marijuana experiment,” Adelstone writes in an email to High Times. “With the far-right nationalist PVV party being the largest party in the Tweede Kamer, expanding the marijuana pilot program to include Amsterdam was a difficult proposition. Thankfully, those opposed to the marijuana pilot program didn’t have enough support to pause or completely stop the program altogether.”

Michael Sassano, founder, chairman and CEO of Somai Pharmaceuticals, a Lisbon-based manufacturer of therapeutic cannabis products, agrees that there “is no surprise that Amsterdam was ‘excluded’ from the program.” 

“The reality is that the Amsterdam coffee shop owners are very happy with their supply agreements both in quality and pricing,” Sassano said in a statement to High Times. “Most coffee shop owners understand that it will take some time for the legal Grow’s to get up to the current quality standards, and also the price will be higher. As the Netherlands progresses, going to a legal market for the entire country will be inevitable but it takes time and infrastructure to achieve this goal.”

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The Mayor of Amsterdam wants to legalize and regulate the sale, possession and use of cocaine. 

In an interview with Dutch newspaper Financieele Dagblad, Mayor Femke Halsema very strongly voiced her opinion on drug prohibition and how the decriminalization and legal sale of drugs like cocaine would take power away from organized crime groups who threaten the safety and stability of Amsterdam. 

“We have handed the market to unscrupulous criminals. They earn billions. And in the meantime, the war on drugs is disrupting entire countries, causing countless victims and strengthening the criminal business model,” Mayor Halsema said. 

Indeed Dutch Customs has recently released a report which supported the notion that organized crime surrounding cocaine trafficking is on the rise in Europe. Dutch Customs seized over 60,000 kilograms of cocaine in 2023 and 51,000 kilograms in 2022. Mayor Halsema has arranged a public debate on the matter which has been scheduled for January 26 in Amsterdam.

Cocaine seizures around Europe have followed the same trend with hundreds of metric tonnes seized around the EU year after year. Many reports have attested that the average price of European cocaine has been cut almost in half and the UN reported in March of last year that cocaine production was at an all time high. 

“Let us conclude that hundreds of years of discouragement and repression have achieved very little,” Halsema said to Financieele Dagblad. “Apparently people have a need for stimulants. There is a market for that.”

Mayor Halsema has been a vocal advocate for change in the City of Amsterdam since her appointment to the role in 2018. She wrote an opinion piece for the Guardian earlier this month in which she expressed that the Netherlands risks becoming a narco-state if steps are not taken to reign in organized crime. 

“The widespread use of drugs is integrated into society. The market is enormous. But there are risks to public health and then you should not leave the market to criminals,” Mayor Halsema said to Financieele Dagblad. “Abusing drugs can have serious consequences. But often the risks are exaggerated. Cocaine, for example, is less harmful than alcohol. People make their own choices.”

Mayor Halsema also told Bloomberg in July of 2022 that she would be taking steps to cut back on problematic forms of tourism post-COVID. She intimated that Amsterdam needed to pull back from the reputation it has garnered as a sort of safe haven for ne’er do wells who came to her city to take a “vacation from morals.”

“In Amsterdam, there’s a state of mind of tolerance. We always argue that cannabis should be legalized and prostitution shouldn’t be criminalized. That is also a part of Amsterdam’s history, a history that we’re very proud of,” Mayor Halsema said to Bloomberg. “But drug culture and prostitution have been internationally commercialized. That is not the way it was intended. We should correct the way we advertised the city in the last 15 years.”

This may seem a bit disconnected for a Mayor advocating for legal cocaine sales but from a harm reduction perspective, it makes sense. Mayor Halsema likened it to Amsterdam’s famous red light district which from her perspective is there to provide safety and security to sex workers who, as she puts it, will always be there to serve customers so long as there is a demand for sex work. 

The same can be said of cocaine sales. A 2023 report from the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction found that cocaine was the second most commonly abused drug in Europe next to cannabis and cocaine seizures in major seaports around the continent have consistently risen every year since 2016. A survey found that almost 2.3 million Europeans between the ages of 15 and 34 had used cocaine in the preceding year.

These record increases in use and trafficking led Switzerland to recently open discussions to consider the launch of a pilot program for adult-use recreational cocaine sales in their capital city of Bern. Mayor Halsema appears to have followed suit by doubling down on what she considered to be a common sense approach to drug policy. 

“What the Netherlands’ problems reveal is the need for a global shift in the current approach. It’s not a matter of retracting our user-centred policy, but rather advocating for international recognition that the war on drugs is counterproductive,” Mayor Halsema wrote to the Guardian. “The prohibition of drugs is enshrined in international treaties that limit the space for national drug policies, meaning we will have to forge new international alliances that prioritise health and safety over punitive measures.”

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Gezellig is a fantastic Dutch word that encompasses a whole mood and defies translation. I think it means a combination of things: the warm feeling of belonging, being in the right place at the perfect time, surrounded by the most genial company. You hear the word a lot in Amsterdam; the concept of gezellig is at the heart of Dutch culture. Finding the sweet moment, relaxing into it, being as cozy and comfortable as possible… it’s a prescription for any stressed-out modern soul.

Factor in the world’s best hash and cannabis, set against the twinkly Advent-calendar beauty of the “Venice of the North,” and you’re in absolute heaven. Every time I’ve visited Amsterdam, I’ve experienced this untranslatable feeling. It’s potent stuff—a swirl of strong coffee and ice-cold foamy glasses of beer, bicycle bells dinging, and rose-ringed parakeets flitting through the Vondelpark in late-afternoon sunshine, all suffused by the sweet aromas of weed and hash.

When I booked a trip to Amsterdam last summer while dreaming of my previous hazy visits, I considered the perils of pining for bygone days. To quote author Brené Brown, “Nostalgia is… a dangerous form of comparison. Think about how often we compare our lives to a memory that nostalgia has so completely edited that it never really existed.” This would be my first trip to the Netherlands in almost a decade, and I was curious to see how the city’s legendary cannabis culture had evolved—or, perhaps, declined, with Barcelona’s rise to prominence as a new European weed capital.

In 2013, I worked the 26th Annual Amsterdam High Times Cannabis Cup during a long November week that lives in my head as a series of frosty snapshots. I judged the Seed Company Sativa category and was a live wire for five straight days as I sampled 21 strains from legendary outfits like Elemental Seeds, Reserva Privada, and Karma Genetics. That year’s winners were genetic heavyweights Tangie, Sour Power, and a super-tasty Sour Diesel cross called Headbanger.

Dutch authorities shut down the Cannabis Cup Expo at the last minute that year, and the High Times staff had to scramble to keep vendors and attendees happy. I remember a lot of long, chilly walks along glittering canals, shuttling back and forth to shows at the Melkweg from coffeeshops that had entered the competition. My judges’ kit powered me through it all like a little weed jetpack, especially on the night my phone died, and I got hopelessly lost. Fortunately, I somehow found my way to the judges’ dinner, where I was enveloped in a cloud of good cheer and great smoke. Gezellig!

This time around, my travel companion and I had no plans beyond eating, smoking, and visiting museums for three days to unwind after a few weeks in the U.K. Our train from London pulled into Amsterdam Central Station at 4:20 p.m. We were in the flow. We dropped our bags at our hotel and headed right for the iconic coffeeshop Green House in the area known as De Wallen, or the red light district.

We pulled up as the sky was darkening into evening shades of purple. The neon sign in the window cast an amber glow over the scene humming in the coffeeshop. It was cinematic and gorgeous, and it smelled great. A laughing girl bumped into me on her way out as we ducked inside. I could feel the days I’d spent in London melting off me, almost hissing as they swirled away. We were in the right place at the right moment. What a relief. My memories of Amsterdam weren’t nostalgic; this was now.

Inside the glow of Green House, we were greeted by Joa Helms, the CEO of the Green House Seed Company. He gestured to the menu on the wall illuminated behind the busy budtenders and asked what we wanted to sample. “Super Lemon Haze, of course,” Helms said with a grin, “and how about some Ztrawberry?” We gratefully—almost wordlessly, I think—sank into a booth next to the window with the two packets of flower he handed us, along with rolling papers and a grinder. “It’s made from hemp,” Helms said of the grinder, as he departed into the night with a friendly wave, leaving us with our treasures.

Green House Seed Company has won countless awards for legendary strains like White Widow and Super Silver Haze, as well as for Super Silver’s progeny, Super Lemon Haze, which won back-to-back Cannabis Cups in 2008 and 2009. As my friend and I stuck our noses into the bags of flower to determine which way our evening would bend, one sniff of Super Lemon Haze was all we needed to know how it was going to go. Roll up, smoke, relax, repeat.

We floated out of Green House into the cool September night after a while, turning left, right, and left again on our evening adventure. We babbled through our Haze-y buzz as we passed by sex workers posing in windows, their neon lingerie popping under black lights with drapes barely concealing rudimentary beds just behind them. Moving through a crush of tourists with unclothed bodies on display for the gawking masses was elemental and deeply weird, but it also felt exactly right because I knew this would likely be the last time we’d see De Wallen like this.

In a move billed as an antidote to the effects of hedonistic tourism, the Dutch government has hatched a plan to relocate the red light district to the outskirts of town. The proposal would shut down sex workers’ windows in an attempt to reset the city as a family-friendly destination. Amsterdam Mayor Femke Halsema is leading the charge to redefine the city’s reputation—and she also wants to ban non-residents in coffeeshops by enforcing a national residents-only rule. Halsema says that banning tourists from coffeeshops is unavoidable in order to tackle tourist nuisances that arise from the “soft drug” sector—i.e. cannabis.

My friend and I chatted about the complicated nature of sex work and drug culture as we strolled along the canals. Prostitution in Amsterdam has been legal and regulated since 2000. Cannabis, however, has never been legal in the Netherlands—the government’s policies tolerate the possession and sale of small quantities of weed and psilocybin, and it’s decriminalized for personal use, but it’s not legal. And for decades, that was just fine, until conservatives like Halsema decided it wasn’t. The tide has turned for the counterculture in Amsterdam as politicians debate about what’s best for the city. It’s certainly the end of an era.

As we finally made our way back to our hotel, my buzz was wearing thin, but my bud stopped to roll up some Ztrawberry, popping open our second fragrant pouch. We perched next to each other on the edge of a canal barge, watched by a well-fed cat who sat cleaning its puffy tail with an eye on us. I was pretty faded after our glowy Super Lemon Haze’d evening, and I was ready to call it quits. But the click of my friend’s lighter and the pass of a joint turned it all around. 

Ztrawberry is a Runtz x A.M.S. cross—it’s got a heavy kick from its Gelato parent sweetness, which fades to a perfect, heady buzz. Holy smokes, I thought, sitting on the edge of the canal barge as I gazed back at the Dutch cat. OK, you are NOT TIRED. You feel great. You feel clear and calm, and in the perfect state of being… oh, wait, this is… yes, it’s gezellig.

This article was originally published in the January 2023 issue of High Times Magazine.

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The Netherlands government recently confirmed that it plans to start its pilot program on December 15 later this year. “The most recent planning shows that two legal growers are expected to be ready for delivery to coffee shops in the fourth quarter of 2023,” the Dutch government wrote. “This is sufficient to start the start-up phase of the experiment in Breda and Tilburg. In this phase, participating coffee shops from these municipalities may offer both legally grown and tolerated products. The next two growers are expected to start supplying coffee shops in Breda and Tilburg in February 2024.” Breda and Tilburg are located in the southern part of the country, near the border of Belgium.

The timeline for this program begins with a “start-up phase” that will last up to six months. “The initiative for the start-up phase was introduced by the mayors of Breda and Tilburg and embraced by Minister Ernst Kuipers of Health, Welfare and Sport and Minister Yeşilgöz-Zegerius of Justice and Security as an opportunity to start the experiment on a small scale around a legalized production and sales chain,” the government wrote.

The start-up phase is described as a sort of warm up time frame for businesses to adjust to the program, however the government notes that if “public order or safety is seriously threatened,” then they will stop the program prematurely. “The insights will be shared with all participating municipalities and used to improve processes and systems for a smooth transition phase,” the government stated.

After the start-up period ends, then the “transition phase” begins. “It is expected that all participating municipalities will be able to start the transition phase at the earliest at the end of the first quarter of 2024,” the government wrote. “In this transition phase, coffee shops in the participating municipalities may offer regulated products in addition to tolerated products.”

According to Forbes, there will be a six-week period where coffee shops can continue to obtain their cannabis products from illegal sources “while the new legal suppliers are phased in.” Following the transition phase, the experimental phase will begin. “From that moment on, participating coffee shop owners may only sell regulated cannabis,” the government added.

The Netherlands announced its plans for the pilot program years ago, and was intended to begin in 2020, but was delayed until 2022. In March 2022, the program received another delay, expecting the program to begin in Q2 2023. “Unfortunately, it has now become apparent that starting in 2022 is no longer realistic,” the letter stated last year. “The selection procedure of the remaining growers is taking longer than expected, and some growers are having trouble securing a location.”

Breda Mayor Paul Depla explained his disappointment that the program continued to be delayed. “It is clear that everyone who is in favor of the cannabis test is disappointed,” said Depla. Tilburg Mayor Theo Weterings also echoed his frustration. “Again delay—how much more can you delay. We expect that some MPs will now be scratching their heads, wondering: what is happening here?”

The Netherlands has never legalized cannabis, although it has long been associated with its “soft drugs” policy, called gedoogbeleid, which allows cannabis business owners to sell their product at coffee shops without being prosecuted. “Dutch coffeeshop policy has long been a subject of public debate. At the heart of the debate is the ambiguous status of cannabis: while the sale and use of cannabis for recreational purposes are tolerated, production and distribution are strictly prohibited,” the Netherlands government stated. “Under the current policy of toleration, selling and using are still criminal offences under Dutch law, but the authorities choose not to pursue or prosecute lawbreakers.”

Due to this policy, the number of coffee shops increased drastically. In 2007, data from Statista shared that an estimated 229 coffee shops were operating within the city of Amsterdam. The most recent data shows that 166 shops were operating, as of 2020. The Netherland government estimates that 570 coffee shops operate across the country’s 102 municipalities.

Amsterdam banned public consumption of cannabis in April 2018, and more recently a ban was also implemented in the Red Light District in May. The Amsterdam City Council approved the ban earlier in 2023. “Residents of the old town suffer a lot from mass tourism and alcohol and drug abuse in the streets,” the city council explained. “Tourists also attract street dealers who in turn cause crime and insecurity. The atmosphere can get grim especially at night. People who are under the influence hang around for a long time. Residents cannot sleep well and the neighborhood becomes unsafe and unlivable.” The city council added that the ban would “reduce nuisance.”

The Netherlands isn’t the only country to start implementing cannabis pilot programs. Fellow European Union (EU) country of Luxembourg, which recently legalized cannabis for personal use in June, began a pilot program to test out legal access to cannabis. Switzerland, which is not a part of the EU, began its own cannabis pilot program in January 2023.

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A new era kicked off in Amsterdam’s Red Light District on Thursday, with a ban on smoking cannabis on the streets officially taking effect.

The ban is part of a city-wide effort, pushed by Mayor Femke Halsema, to make the famous area more hospitable to its residents and workers.

According to Reuters, signs “were posted in the canal-lined neighbourhood known for its brothels, sex clubs and marijuana cafes, which attract millions of tourists a year, but are a nuisance to residents.”

Those found in violation of the new law will face a €100 (or about $110) fine.

The law was proposed earlier this year by the Amsterdam city council.

“Residents of the old town suffer a lot from mass tourism and alcohol and drug abuse in the streets. Tourists also attract street dealers who in turn cause crime and insecurity. The atmosphere can get grim especially at night. People who are under the influence hang around for a long time. Residents cannot sleep well and the neighborhood becomes unsafe and unlivable,” the city council said in a statement at the time.

“A smoking ban on the street should reduce nuisance. We are also looking at a pick-up ban at certain times for soft drugs. If the nuisance does not decrease enough, we will investigate whether we can ban smoking on terraces at coffee shops,” the council added.

The city council gave final approval to the proposal earlier this month, setting the stage for Thursday.

According to Reuters, people “will still be allowed to smoke inside and on the terraces of coffee shops selling marijuana and hash in the district and other parts of the city.” 

The pot smoking ban is part of an effort led by Halsema, Amsterdam’s first female mayor, to improve conditions in the Red Light District. 

CNN reported in 2019 that Halsema had “presented four options aimed at protecting sex workers from degrading conditions, tackling crime, and reducing the impact of tourism in Amsterdam’s De Wallen red-light district.” 

“Four scenarios have been proposed for discussion including closing the curtains on the windows so sex workers can’t be seen from the street, fewer window-style rooms, moving the brothels to new locations elsewhere in Amsterdam and the possibility of a sex worker “hotel” being created,” according to CNN. The plans aim to protect sex workers from gawking tourists and their camera phones, and also to combat a rise in abuses such as human trafficking. The four proposals will be discussed with sex workers, residents and businesses in July, before being taken to the city council in September. The plans will ultimately be developed into a new policy on sex work, the mayor’s office confirmed.”

The Red Light District, known locally in Amsterdam as the De Wallen neighborhood, has long been a popular destination for tourists visiting the city. 

CNN reported earlier this year that it is “estimated that about 10% to 15% of Amsterdam’s tourist industry is based in the red light district.”

“City officials want the De Wallen neighborhood, as the district is known in Dutch, to draw visitors who can appreciate its unique heritage, architecture and culture rather than sex and drugs,” CNN reported at the time. Over the past few years, there have been multiple initiatives to reduce the impact of mass tourism and nuisance visitors, and to revamp the area’s image.

In 2020, guided tours were prohibited from passing sex workers’ windows, and there was talk of moving the window brothels to a neighborhood outside of the city center—conversations that continue to this day.”

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A new ordinance banning cannabis use on the streets in Amsterdam’s Red Light District is slated to take effect later this month. 

The ban, officially approved by Amsterdam’s city council last week, will “come into effect from May 25 and will be enforced by police and local officials,” according to Bloomberg, which noted that violation of the new law will result in a €100 (or $109) fine.

The law was offered up by the Amsterdam city council in February, with local officials decrying the “nuisance” and “grim” atmosphere of the famous district at night.

“Residents of the old town suffer a lot from mass tourism and alcohol and drug abuse in the streets. Tourists also attract street dealers who in turn cause crime and insecurity. The atmosphere can get grim especially at night. People who are under the influence hang around for a long time. Residents cannot sleep well and the neighborhood becomes unsafe and unlivable,” the city council said in a statement at the time.

“A smoking ban on the street should reduce nuisance. We are also looking at a pick-up ban at certain times for soft drugs. If the nuisance does not decrease enough, we will investigate whether we can ban smoking on terraces at coffee shops,” the council continued.

CNN reported at the time that if the outdoor smoking ban failed to achieve the desired results, the “municipality said it would also consider banning take-out purchases of soft drugs at certain times, and banning smoking marijuana at coffee shops’ outdoor seating areas.”

“It is estimated that about 10% to 15% of Amsterdam’s tourist industry is based in the red light district,” according to CNN. “City officials want the De Wallen neighborhood, as the district is known in Dutch, to draw visitors who can appreciate its unique heritage, architecture and culture rather than sex and drugs. Over the past few years, there have been multiple initiatives to reduce the impact of mass tourism and nuisance visitors, and to revamp the area’s image.

In 2020, guided tours were prohibited from passing sex workers’ windows, and there was talk of moving the window brothels to a neighborhood outside of the city center—conversations that continue to this day.” 

Amsterdam Mayor Femke Halsema has prioritized cleaning up the Red Light District since becoming mayor nearly five years ago.

In 2019, Halsema, who is Amsterdam’s first female mayor, “presented four options aimed at protecting sex workers from degrading conditions, tackling crime, and reducing the impact of tourism in Amsterdam’s De Wallen red-light district,” CNN reported at the time.

“For many visitors, the sex workers have become no more than an attraction to look at. In some cases this is accompanied by disruptive behavior and a disrespectful attitude to the sex workers in the windows,” Halsema’s office said, as quoted by CNN, which outlined some of the mayor’s proposed reforms:

“Four scenarios have been proposed for discussion including closing the curtains on the windows so sex workers can’t be seen from the street, fewer window-style rooms, moving the brothels to new locations elsewhere in Amsterdam and the possibility of a sex worker “hotel” being created. The plans aim to protect sex workers from gawking tourists and their camera phones, and also to combat a rise in abuses such as human trafficking. The four proposals will be discussed with sex workers, residents and businesses in July, before being taken to the city council in September. The plans will ultimately be developed into a new policy on sex work, the mayor’s office confirmed.”

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If the quandaries of figuring out how to legally certify a cannabis market in both the U.S. and Canada have been filled with drama, the issues in Europe are going to be hardly less daunting.

In Germany right now, the entire debate is essentially being put in deep freeze with various excuses, including the ongoing pandemic, if not the war in Ukraine, despite the ongoing chatter about its inevitability. 

Right across the Schengen border, the Dutch, the inventors of the eponymous coffeeshop, are now going through their own “growing” pains when it comes to creating a legal, certified, national market.

How Holland Is Trying To Certify Its National Industry

The coffeeshops that operate in the largest cities will still have their own uncertified cultivation. However, with the exception of these stores, the Dutch government established a national cultivation bid to supply ten cities with regulated cannabis. This is a trial program, which will also be studied to see how this entire idea works as well as its impact on the general population — including its ability to keep cannabis out of the hands of children and teenagers.

The trial is expected to kick off next year. At that point, the cannabis grown under the trial will be shipped to these establishments and every coffeeshop that is located in a municipality which is participating will be obligated to buy their cannabis from the government-certified program. If they do not, they will lose their permit. This does not mean that the coffeeshops will be limited to just one cultivator.

Ten growers, who won the right to participate in a cultivation bid, will supply this market — although at this point there are only seven who have qualified to do so. Growers must prove that they do not have a “criminal” past, and that they can secure their cultivation facilities.

The standardization of the weed biz however does not make the owners of coffeeshops in these locations very enthusiastic. Many people doubt that the cannabis they will get from these cultivators is up to the quality that they previously produced — and will almost certainly limit the selection of the cannabis on offer. 

That issue has not been taken into consideration by the government. When the trial begins, coffeeshops in these municipalities will only have six weeks to sell through the self-cultivated cannabis they might have. Then they will be required to purchase from the government program.

Many shop owners wish that they were given more choice. Indeed, many are suggesting that there is a voluntary opt in rather than a mandatory requirement.

The Dutch government, however, is not giving them that option.

For that reason, many coffeeshops fear that they will then lose customers to the existing black market.

Growing Pains

The Dutch government initiated a national trial program to attempt to control the entire supply chain of cannabis for recreational purposes in late 2019. Since then, a legal tender was created to select the cultivators allowed to grow such cannabis.

The trial program is intended to last for four years. 

The process has been, rather predictably, frustrated with multiple delays including NIMBY protests from municipalities who objected to such cultivation taking place in their districts and even a slap suit by a large Canadian producer.

During the experiment, researchers will monitor the entire process. Based on the results of the trial, the government will then decide how to effectively implement policy for the long term.

Presently Dutch coffeeshops grow their own cannabis, and as a result, the entire process exists in a grey area of the law. This will not come to an end once the national trial starts. Establishments in the larger cities will still grow their own.

This trial is also set against a backdrop of increasing pressure on the existing coffeeshops, which includes perennial threats from government authorities to ban tourists from being able to drop into such establishments.

Will Other European Countries Follow the Dutch?

There is a great deal of attention on how the Dutch trial will proceed outside of Holland. This is particularly true in Germany which is now wrestling with how to make its own recreational system function. While Germany is not likely to allow establishments like coffeeshops to operate, at least at first, they are likely to set up a similar system of controlled cultivation — if they do not mandate that the original three medical growers are the initial providers of the same.

Regardless, it is clear that Europe is on the cusp of finally coming to terms with the fact that cannabis is not going to disappear.

Now the question is how to create a regulated, legal market that can protect consumers and bring in much needed tax income.

The Dutch, as usual, are in the forefront of this discussion.

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