After about half a century of illegality and shadow, dozens of coffee shops switched to legal soft drugs on Monday. The illegal weed of the menu has also disappeared in Breda and Tilburg. As an experiment. Despite all the enthusiasm, not all consequences can already be managed, but the test is for that.
“I am happy. It’s a historic day,” says Rick Brand, owner of coffee shop De Baron in Breda. Margriet van der Wal of the United Breda Coffeeshop holders sees justice. “It is a historical mistake”.
That ‘historical mistake’ was made almost a century ago, the enthusiasts say. Then weed and hashish were forbidden. From the 1970s, the first coffee shops opened their doors and the big tolerance began. Selling was fine, but growing remained really forbidden. This is how the back door was built: the gate from the underworld. And that created a shadow game with dark traders and vague growers.
Headache
“There was plenty of good weed through the back door, but I was not sure if it was pesticide-free.” Brand knows what it feels like to smoke impure weed. Sometimes he walked around for more than a week with a headache and sore throat. “I’m glad I can smoke all those products without risk now.”
Not knowing what exactly you smoke, that’s a thing of the past. Just like the back door that connected underworld and upper world. “We bricked that back door,” laughs Rick Brand. “I’m done with it. There is peace because there are no more criminal back doors.”
Ritual
Eleven Tilburg and eight Breda coffee shops have now really closed the back door for illegal weed. Customers were able to get used to test running during more than two years. More and more suppliers came to the menu. Legal weed of, for example, a grower from Waalwijk, the illegal products displaced.
Until only a little illegal stuff remained. That leftover Brand gave his customers as a gift in recent days. “I said I was sitting with a problem and asked them a question. Can you burn this ritual for me?” How that burned is the secret of the customers.
The back door is still ajar
The weed test is held in ten Dutch municipalities. About 80 coffee shops are participating nationwide. Breda and Tilburg are the only Brabant participants and have more than two years of experience and therefore a lead. That run -up had some teething problems, such as the small stocks, but they were allowed to enlarge. The run -up went without problems.
Tilburg has 11 and Breda 8 coffee shops. That is about half the number of coffee shops in Brabant. The test lasts four years. In between, research is done and we look at what the effects are.
The back door is not yet completely closed. All weed on the menu in Breda and Tilburg is legal. Not yet the hashish. That’s because there is still too little supply and too little good quality. That is why the stores and growers are given two more months to get that in order.
The illegal grower is no longer on the back door. What those people are going to do is now the question. “There are those who just stop growing or they are going to do other things,” says Rick Brand. “Some are retired.”
But certainly not every criminal stops. You can still earn money with weed trade. For example, there is a group of enthusiasts who want nothing more than Moroccan hash. But whether they now buy the import product from street dealers is one of the big questions to which an answer may come to.
Illegal hashish often comes from Morocco and they can sell the coffee shops that participate in the experiment for two months longer. Because there is still too little Dutch hashish available and so the back door remains ajar.
Taxation
The legal weed sales has an interesting effect. Sale of soft drugs yields VAT and therefore tax. We all benefit from that. “That is good news for the treasury of the Netherlands. We desperately need that.” Brand thinks that due to the income, opponents of the test will also change his opinion. “The whole of Europe is working on it”.
Brand is optimistic. “It will only get better from now on. The growers are going to produce more, there are a lot of variants, the quality is high, the prices are good. A grower breeds with only sunlight and that also has consequences for the price.”
Margriet van der Wal is enthusiastic about the huge step that has been taken. She thinks this contributes to the positive image, respect and safety. “It’s a hugely interesting process.”
Weed ambassador Brand cannot continue to emphasize how cannabis plants help people. “It is primarily a medicinal plant. Created by God or Mother Nature. The cannabis plant is liberated.”
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