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LEGAL WEED IN THE NETHERLANDS
THE KINGDOM LAUNCHES A “COFFEESHOP EXPERIMENT”
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Cannabis consumption in the Netherlands is now more transparent. Since 15 December last year, some Dutch cannabis shops – the infamous food-and-beverage establishments known as coffeeshops – have been able to explicitly sell legal marijuana and hashish to their customers. What was named “coffeeshop experiment” (also known as “weed experiment”) is intended make life a little easier for the operators of such establishments by supplying them with cannabis from state-controlled cultivation, i.e. legal smoking material, as part of the pilot project.
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To date, many people, especially tourists, believe that cannabis is legal in the Netherlands. However, this is not so. Since a reform of the Dutch Opium Act and the introduction of a new tolerance policy in 1976, the purchase of cannabis for personal use has been almost decriminalised (initially up to 30 grams, but since 1995 up to 5 grams) in order to relieve the country’s law-enforcement and judiciary systems. As a result, the sale of potent cannabis in the kingdom’s coffeeshops has been merely tolerated, but not legalised. The tolerance policy only applies to the purchase, possession and consumption by private consumers, but not to the cultivation and sale and certainly not to the profit-making trade in cannabis products.
Since then, coffeeshop owners have been faced with a problem, as they are dependent on supplies from black-market growers. So basically, they have been selling illegal cannabis products from underground cannabis farms for decades. As the goods offered in coffeeshops have to be organised practically through the backdoor, this practice has also become known as the “backdoor problem”. Politically speaking this is both arbitrary and inconsistent for a reason that can be easily explained. While operators of coffee shops are allowed to sell cannabis to their customers and, of course, have to pay tax on their income, they are forced to turn themselves into criminals at the same time by purchasing their cannabis supplies on the illegal market. Coffeeshop owners are therefore obviously operating in a legal grey area, but are publicly exposed because everyone knows that this type of business is not entirely untainted from a legal standpoint. For this reason, they are also not permitted by the credit institutions to open and operate a business account. Nonetheless, this is what the politicians in The Hague wanted - and decided – 48 years ago. The coffeeshop experiment is designed to put an end to this situation in the long term and finally create a regular chain of coffeeshops. As health minister Ernst Kuipers explained to the
press, the planned regulatory reform implies the advantage that the origin and quality of the cannabis can be better controlled. In particular, the cannabinoid content of cannabis flowers and resins will be standardised and the use of pesticides and other plant protection products avoided. In addition, certified marijuana would make it possible to inform consumers about possible health risks and effects of cannabis use in a realistic manner. However, for the time being, the rules of the pilot project do not apply nationwide but only to the southern cities of Breda and Tilburg. Over time, the pilot project will gradually be extended to a total of ten cities and one district of the capital Amsterdam, with the local cannabis shops in each municipality having to join the project. This test phase, during which coffeeshops are allowed to buy and sell certified cannabis, is scheduled for a total of four years, with each city being allowed to participate in the project for a maximum period of six months. During this phase, shop will be allowed to purchase and stock up to 500 grams of legal cannabis and up to 500 grams of ‘time-tested’ illegal cannabis. For this early stage, three cannabis farms have qualified for the government-authorised supply of the coffeeshops. At the launch of the pilot project in his city, Tilburg’s mayor Theo Weterings declared that this was a historic moment and the initial spark for the long-awaited legalisation of cannabis in the Netherlands. The mayor of Breda too, Paul Depla, is also positive about the project. After all, the press event for the start of the experiment took place in the Breda cannabis shop Café De Baron. The start of the coffeeshop experiment, announced in 2019, was originally scheduled to take place earlier but has been postponed several times. At the end of the four years announced, the experiment will be assessed. If it is successful, which looks probable, the Dutch government will consider the possibility of fully legalising cannabis.
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Sources: www.rijksoverheid.nl, faz.net, deutschlandfunk.de Markus Berger