A day for the history books. After more than five years of preparations, the first legally grown cannabis was sold on Friday at fourteen coffee shops, including De Baron in Breda. It means the beginning of an end to the back door through which illegally grown cannabis enters. The trial with legally grown cannabis also raises questions. You can find the answers here.
1. Why does the government encourage legally grown marijuana while discouraging smoking?
Ten growers have received a permit from the government to legally produce weed and supply it to coffee shops. The Ministry of Justice and Security and the Dutch Food and Consumer Product Safety Authority (NVWA) keep an eye on this. The permit for legal cannabis cultivation is mainly intended to prevent illegally grown cannabis from entering the coffee shop through the back door.
It is unclear how the illegally grown cannabis was grown. By legally regulating cannabis cultivation, there is more supervision of production. For example, it is clear which pesticides are used. With illegal cultivation, the buyer does not know this. According to Minister Kuipers of Health, legal cultivation makes cannabis purer and less polluted.
Another goal of the cannabis test is to ensure that less money goes to illegal cannabis cultivation. According to Theo Weterings, mayor of Tilburg, too much of the illegally earned capital would have gone to the development of all kinds of other crime.
By the way, smoking legal weed is of course not good for your health. There is a leaflet included with legal cannabis to warn about health risks. In addition, the packaging looks neutral and not attractive, according to coffee shop owner Rick Brands. This is in line with the government’s plan for a smoke-free generation.
2. How good is legally grown cannabis?
Coffee shop owner Brands is happy with the arrival of legally grown cannabis. “The cannabis lover is ready for clean cannabis that is free of pesticides. No weighting agents are used to make the weed heavier and thus increase the yield. That is not what we want and what the cannabis lover deserves.” Minister Kuipers agrees with Brands and speaks of the importance of this for public health.
3. Is legal weed expensive?
Our reporter Willem-Jan Joachems attended the opening of the first box of legally grown cannabis on Friday morning. When Joachems looked at the price list of coffee shop De Baron, he noticed that the prices were comparable to illegally grown cannabis.
4. Can a coffee shop have more legal weed in stock than before?
The existing legislation and regulations will largely remain the same during the experiment. There is an exception in the trading stock. For example, the current limit of 500 grams does not apply during the experiment. The coffee shop owner may also leave an order with a designated grower as a kind of stock. “Yet coffee shop owners are cautious. They want to maintain around 500 grams of stock as much as possible,” says our reporter.
For example, Minister Kuipers of Health opened the first box of legally grown cannabis at Coffeeshop De Baron in Breda on Friday morning:
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