AMSTERDAM — The Netherlands has long been a mecca for buzz-seeking tourists on account of its lax cannabis laws.

What many of them don't know is that cannabis is not — and has never been — legal in the country. Instead, under a policy of tolerance known as gedoogbeleid, the Netherlands turns a blind eye to designated coffee shops selling weed — even though it's officially illegal for those shops to purchase cannabis from producers.

But this muddled policy will soon change in parts of the country, at least for a while. The Dutch government is launching an experiment in 10 municipalities, starting this January and rolling out over the year, that will allow coffee shops to purchase cannabis from up to 10 state-approved growers, rather than through illicit sources.

Breda will be among those municipalities, and its mayor, Paul Depla, is wholeheartedly on board. He takes issue with the hypocrisy of allowing cannabis at the front door while outlawing it at the back.

"Nobody can explain the logic of the current system," Depla told POLITICO in a recent interview.

Amsterdam — home to around 30 percent of the country's coffee shops — won't take part in the experiment, and those working in the city's weed business don't it want to.

For the government and public health officials, the move means ensuring more safety for consumers and eradicating the black market.

But Amsterdam — home to around 30 percent of the country's coffee shops — won't take part in the experiment, and those working in the city's weed business don't it want to. A chief concern is that the already limited number of suppliers will shrink the variety of cannabis available to coffee shops. In turn, the plan could allow big companies to monopolize the market if it's extended to the whole country.

According to one coffee shop employee, the initiative will greatly affect the quality available in Amsterdam, as there's a difference between commercially grown weed and the kind "made with love" by "moms and pops."

Don't get the difference? You will when you smoke it, he insisted.

Limits of tolerance

Despite its reputation, nothing about selling cannabis is lawful in the Netherlands.

It's illegal for coffee shops to engage in the cannabis supply chain. Instead, they source their cannabis from all kinds of players on the black market — someone with a few plants, a grower in the Dutch countryside, or units of organized crime operating around Europe.

However, the possession and sale of small amounts of cannabis is decriminalized. In practice, this means the government issues licenses to coffee shops, allowing them to sell small amounts of cannabis to consumers over the age of 18.

The policy has largely gone unchanged since the 1970s, although the Dutch government does go after growers and coffee shops that violate their licenses. Throughout 2019, for example, police in Tilburg — one of the towns that will participate in the experiment — have taken action against various growers and people housing large amounts of weed.



The policy has long raised concerns over safety for cannabis consumers and the role of the black market. As Depla explained, customers have very little understanding of what they're consuming when they purchase cannabis, as there are no quality checks or required labels.

"If you buy a tomato, you know everything about how it’s produced," Depla said. "But for cannabis, it’s a big question mark."

Controversy over compromise

After a long tug-of-war between conservative parties seeking a complete ban and left-wing parties pushing for full legalization, the government settled this year on the current compromise. In the selected municipalities, a total of 79 coffee shops will be able to purchase cannabis from state-approved growers. The tenders for the approved growers will be posted by the Dutch government.

Some insiders point out that cannabis has distinctive features that need to be understood for any policy to work.

Another innovation is government-mandated packaging for all cannabis sold, which will include warnings about health risks and information on the percentages of cannabinoids such as THC and CBD. This marks a departure from the current practice of having no rules about packaging — since the government has no oversight of the product.

But this compromise has generated as much controversy as the status quo did. Some officials say the program should be rolled out across the entire country, while others say it won't get rid of the black market.

Another concern is that the initiative will encourage cannabis consumption. Government officials say this is unlikely.

André Knottnerus, the researcher who will oversee the effort over the next four years, called this slow rollout a "wise" way forward, arguing that the government will learn from the experiment and make refinements.

"In this societal and political debate, it is a very important step to get more methods and more experience, and then decide [what] the final decision for next steps would be," he said.

Tomatoes or wine?

Some insiders point out that cannabis has distinctive features that need to be understood for any policy to work.

Youri Boerlage, a spokesperson at Amsterdam's so-called Cannabis College, an NGO that provides information on the plant, doesn't think cannabis should be treated like tomatoes. There are thousands of varieties of tomatoes, he said, but only a limited number end up in supermarkets — usually the ones that are simplest to grow and yield the most crops.

Under the experiment, cannabis could be similarly homogenized, Boerlage warned.

Instead, he thinks weed should be treated more like wine. Production requires a large variety of growers looking for certain smells, chemicals and traits. This expertise takes years to cultivate, and the Dutch have been doing it for decades.

Those small producers will likely keep on growing as the experiment gets underway, Boerlage said. If the legal market was expanded nationwide but still restricted to the 10 suppliers designated by the government, he thinks small growers would continue to grow a wide variety of cannabis and try to sell that through the black market. But the diversity of offerings could suffer.

Small-scale producers would likely continue growing a wide variety of cannabis even if the experimental system becomes the norm nationwide, Boerlage said. But if the legal market is limited to the 10 suppliers designated by the government, the smaller producers would only be able to sell on the black market, likely reducing the variety that is legally and easily available to consumers.

Knottnerus, by contrast, argues such a shift might be a good thing. A smaller number of producers means it's easier to do quality checks. He also notes there will be panels of consumers and coffee shops to test the quality.

"There's really ambition to have very good variety, because that's crucial," he said. "It has to be effective enough to be offered to the consumers."

Those who want to see this experiment fail, he added, are "the people ... that make a lot of money now in the criminal circuit."

As one Wisconsin-based cannabis tourist put it on her way out of a coffee shop, if you’ve smoked weed in California, “you’ll be disappointed” by Amsterdam.

Due to a dearth of reliable data, no one can say how many coffee shops are supplied by mom-and-pop growers versus large criminal networks. But given the estimated size of the market — €300 million annually in Amsterdam alone, according to a city report cited by De Telegraaf — the idea that big coffee shops are supplied by small family growers is "a joke," said Depla.

Quality questions

Some in the Amsterdam weed scene say legalization needs to go further and include home-grown cannabis and small growers — not just the producers selected by the state.

These kinds of systems are what allowed Canada and the United States to become the leaders of cannabis variety and quality, said Joost Kros, a Dutch sales manager at Greenlane, an American company that distributes to dispensaries and smoke shops.

Where cannabis is legal, growers can more easily test and create different varieties of better quality cannabis because they're not doing it in the shadows, he says. They also face quality checks.

Meanwhile, the Netherlands may already be falling behind in terms of quality due to its current system.

As one Wisconsin-based cannabis tourist put it on her way out of a coffee shop, if you’ve smoked weed in California, “you’ll be disappointed” by Amsterdam.

Unless the new plan expands and allows broad-based cannabis cultivation, Kros argues, the country's limited experiment could burn out whatever is left of Amsterdam’s standing in the weed world.

"Ten, 15 years ago, we were ahead of everyone — but not anymore," Kros added.

The first time he walked into an American dispensary, Kros recounts, he was shocked. The dispensaries provide lists with the cannabis varieties and their cannabinoid levels.

Seeing that variety made him wonder: "What are we doing in Holland?"

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