T<\/span>he Netherlands has long had an uneasy relationship with its\u00a0famous and reliable tourism draw:\u00a0the coffeeshops in Amsterdam and other cities allowed to sell small amounts of marijuana.<\/p>\n Generations of Americans, Britons and other refugees from prohibitionist countries mired in the War on Drugs have ventured to the European country for cannabis-soaked spring breaks, stony summer vacations or mind-bending sojourns of interminable but absolutely much longer length.<\/p>\n Some of the impetus for European vacations centered around a visit to a coffeeshop has evaporated<\/a> since American states began legalizing the use and commercial sale of non-medical marijuana. And Dutch authorities briefly flirted with writing tourists out of its domestic marijuana trade,\u00a0introducing a so-called \u201cweed pass\u201d that restricted coffeeshop visits to Dutch nationals only.<\/a>\u00a0(In an ongoing act of civil disobedience combined with only-in-Europe laxity, coffeeshops in Amsterdam ignore that restriction, and the police shrug their shoulders and worry about other things.) But the coffee shops are still there and still smoking \u2014 and dealing with a troubling conundrum.<\/a><\/p>\n Coffeeshops can sell marijuana, but they aren\u2019t allowed to produce it. Since the cannabis has to come from somewhere, and since growing marijuana is illegal, coffeeshops\u2019 solution to their supply paradox is obvious: They buy marijuana on the black market, which means patronizing criminals involved in \u201charder drugs,\u201d\u00a0as the Guardian observed.<\/a><\/p>\n The potential for abuse via the \u201cbackdoor\u201d is obvious. \u201cProduction now is dominated by organized crime syndicates,\u201d said Paul Depla, mayor of the southern Dutch city of Breda, in comments to the newspaper. \u201cWe have got a bankrupt system.\u201d<\/p>\n Luckily, there\u2019s a simple workaround for this problem, too: Legalize cannabis production. As the Guardian reported, the notion has occurred to \u201cat least 30 companies,\u201d all of whom have expressed interest in producing marijuana for coffeeshops with official government approval.<\/p>\n Beginning this year, as many as 10 regional governments in the Netherlands will experiment with regulated marijuana production. They\u2019ll then report back to the central government, which may recommend widespread adoption of regulated domestic cannabis cultivation.<\/p>\n About two dozen cities have leaped at the chance to enter the marijuana space and are floating various plans.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n They include allowing companies and medical firms to produce cannabis, eliminating coffeeshops altogether and allowing customers to buy weed online, adopting a model similar to first-generation medical cannabis clubs seen in the United States and leaving production to coffeeshop \u201cmembers\u201d \u2014 or leaving production up to the coffeeshops themselves.<\/p>\n While the country still stands mostly alone in allowing adults to purchase cannabis without worry of arrest, the Netherlands\u2019 experiment<\/a> with marijuana is in line with other countries. In Italy, medical marijuana patients can access cannabis grown for them by the military. In Switzerland, cannabis users can patronize storefronts that take advantage of a loophole in that country\u2019s law that legalizes the production, use and sale of low-THC, high-CBD cannabis.<\/p>\n Moving to a legitimate supply model would seem to be the natural progression for Dutch cannabis cafe culture \u2014 and once adopted, a move that will leave most observers wondering what took so long.<\/p>\n TELL US,<\/strong> do you think the Netherlands should legalize growing cannabis?<\/p>\n The post The Netherlands Moves to Legalize Growing Pot<\/a> appeared first on Cannabis Now<\/a>.<\/p>\n
Amsterdam\u2019s black market has been thriving thanks to the Netherlands\u2019s convoluted legal system, where coffeeshops can sell cannabis, but can\u2019t grow it. This year, 10 Dutch regional governments will experiment with legalizing marijuana farming. The Netherlands has long had an uneasy relationship with its\u00a0famous and reliable tourism draw:\u00a0the coffeeshops inContinue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"false","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[59,1143,50,1724,80,553,90,57],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22637"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22637"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22637\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22638,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22637\/revisions\/22638"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22637"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22637"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22637"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
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\nRead More: The Netherlands Moves to Legalize Growing Pot<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"