Totally in line with international agreements, the possession and production of cannabis was forbidden by the law in
the Netherlands in 1953 in the so-called Opium Act. After the hippie era, however, people began to think differently
about how the government should deal with the use of and trade in cannabis. In the early 1970s, people mainly
turned a blind eye to the use and trade in cannabis. Where cannabis remained prohibited by law, the government
no longer took action to press charges. This tolerance policy was documented in 1976 in the “Instruction of the
Opium Act”, which prescribes how enforcers (Public Prosecutioners, Police, Judges) must deal with the violations
of the Opium Act. According to that law, cannabis is still officially prohibited, but in the Netherlands no one is
arrested anymore when he or she owns a small amount of cannabis for personal use and designated coffeeshops
are also allowed to sell small amounts to users. Unfortunately, within this tolerance policy there is no empathy for
the production of cannabis and the stock of these coffeeshops. This “wholesale market” remains completely illegal
to this day. Nevertheless, with this tolerance policy and its coffeeshops, the Netherlands was unique in the world
and a frontrunner in the decriminalization of cannabis.
The first coffeeshops
In 1972 the first real coffeeshop was opened, called Mellow Yellow. Starting from the mid-1970s, the number of
coffeeshops in the Netherlands grew rapidly. And in 1981 Johan van Laarhoven opened the first coffeeshop in
Tilburg, which would eventually grow into The Grass Company.
Gradually the coffeeshops had to deal with more and more rules in order to be tolerated. But starting from 1995
there was a real change in how the government looked at coffeeshops. There would be too many shops and they
caused a nuisance, partly due to the stream of cannabis tourists (because the Netherlands was the only country
in the world with this phenomenon). As a result, the rules, which were already developing at a local level, were
included nationally in the “Instruction of the Opium Act”. With this, criteria were established at a national level
which a coffeeshop had to meet in order to be tolerated. The minimum age of coffeeshop visitors became 18 years.
Coffeeshops weren’t allowed to sell more than 5 grams per person per day. A coffeeshop wasn’t allowed to have
more than 500 grams of cannabis in their stock and there were rules for how close a coffeeshop should be located
to a school. These tolerance criteria that were formulated at the time still apply today, but have been regularly
supplemented with new rules. For example, in a number of municipalities it’s prohibited to visit a coffeeshop if
you don’t live in the Netherlands.
Coffeeshops were also increasingly and more harshly seized by the government. Unreliable coffeeshops were
closed (which is fine of course), but also a lot of good coffeeshops needed to close their doors due to the changing
government policy. It turns out that the tolerance policy, and certainly the sometimes impossible to enforce rules
and the schizophrenic situation with the legal sales at the front door and the illegal buying at the back door, is not
sustainable in the long term. The number of coffeeshops has therefore been declining steadily since the 1990s. In
the early 1990s there were an estimated 1500 coffeeshops in the Netherlands; there are now only about 570.
International liberalisation
In the Netherlands the government has become increasingly strict, while in other countries, where cannabis was
ofcourse prohibited, liberalisation has been introduced. This ranges from simple decriminalization of the
possession of cannabis in countries such as Portugal and the Czech Republic, through the legalization of only
medicinal cannabis in dozens of countries (in the Netherlands in 2003) to full legalization of cannabis in countries
such as Canada, Uruguay and several states in the USA. The tolerance policy has long been outdated by these
other countries, but fortunately they have learned from the Dutch testing ground that the tolerance policy has
been for decades. All these countries do not tolerate but legalize and have regulated the entire cannabis chain,
from seed to consumer.
The Netherlands: controlled cannabis supply chain experiment
In the Netherlands people have declared the tolerance policy now as bankrupt and one is gradually ready for a
solution to the problems that come with the tolerance policy. In the meantime, a law has been accepted for an
experiment with legal cannabis cultivation, which should provide the coffeeshops with a legal delivery,
purchase and sale of cannabis. The aim of the experiment is to transparently regulate the entire operation around
the coffeeshops. The plan is that in 2021, hoping the corona crisis doesn’t slow it down, the controlled cannabis
supply chain experiment will start. Eighty coffeeshops in ten selected municipalities will participated and will be
supplied with cannabis by ten elected growers. Tilburg is one of these ten municipalities, so this means that the
shops of The Grass Company Tilburg will be participating in this experiment. If they have not already succumbed
to the tolerance policy before then.
Cannabis is therefore still illegal in the Netherlands. And, although the Netherlands has been the cannabis
frontrunner for many years, no one yet knows whether and how cannabis will be legalized here. But that major
changes are on the way in the field of cannabis and regulations are undeniable because everyone agrees that
the tolerance policy has passed its expiration date.
Photo by Steven Foster on Unsplash