We are in Amsterdam. This is a city that’s known for a lot of things, not least among them marijuana.
Now as the cannabis industry is growing in other parts of the world,
we thought we could learn some lessons from the industry here.
There’s a lot of things going on in this coffee shop. We have a really nice bar.
Joachim Helms is the co-owner of Green House Coffeeshops in Amsterdam
and chairman of the Dutch Cannabis Retailers Association.
We have this system in Holland where people can go to a coffee shop
and buy their cannabis product in a good, nice, safe environment.
Thanks to a so-called “toleration policy,” it’s been legal to sell and smoke marijuana and hash
in coffee shops like Greenhouse in the Netherlands for decades.
So this is one strain that we have. It’s a super-lemon haze.
Yeah, that's a really strong smell.
We have a maximum of 500 grams in the coffee shop.
And also the people are allowed to buy five grams per day, per person.
Which is enough for personal use.
And that’s a small amount compared to the United States for example?
In the United States, it’s a lot more. Yes, definitely.
The Dutch government enforces strict conditions for coffee shops to stay in business,
like the quantity of weed sold and the prohibition of alcohol and other hard drugs.
But as marijuana legalization gains steam in countries like the U.S. and Canada,
the Netherlands is falling behind when it comes to regulating the weed industry.
While it’s legal to sell marijuana to customers in coffee shops,
it’s illegal for the shops to buy their supply of weed.
The politicians, they forgot to organize one aspect of it all, that’s that we buy the weed in a normal way.
So in Holland, it’s illegal to buy weed on a large scale, and it’s illegal to produce cannabis also.
In America, what you see is a little bit like the opposite side.
So, what they have organized really well is the production of weed.
The Dutch government is planning a trial to experiment with legal production in the country.
But that's just one of many regulatory hurdles in the Dutch cannabis industry.
A law in 2014 forced coffee shops located within 250 meters of a school to close.
That affected one-third of Amsterdam shops.
Helms says marijuana legalization in Canada and states in the U.S. has started a conversation
about how the Netherlands can cash in on the growing legal weed market,
which is expected to reach more than $140 billion by 2025.
He pointed to Canadian public cannabis companies now valued at billions of dollars.
Do you think it could ever happen here, where there was a big publicly traded cannabis company?
I think it will be a while, but I think in the end it will happen worldwide.
What you see now is that really big companies are being created, producing cannabis.
To walk around in those companies and facilities is for us really a dream come true
because it’s growing weed in a 100% legal way.
Hey everyone, Elizabeth here. Thanks so much for watching!
What do you think about the marijuana industry? Let us know in the comments section.
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