Breda: Cannabis and law

Hey everybody!

This article is about the selling of marijuana in Netherlands, we don't want by any way encourage its consumption. This is an exception in the world, the sale of this product is legal here and is therefore an integral party of the local culture and habits.
First I will tell you a little more about hemp. It was used extensively in the past even since the Neolithic. However, it has gradually been banned or heavily regulated in the twentieth century because of its psychoactive properties. This is due to the propaganda of the Puritan era in the United States, which saw the failure of prohibition, became interested in marijuana, assisted by various industrial lobbies (cotton, paper, oil, nylon) and regulating very hard use.

Federal Bureau of Narcotics public service announcement used in the late 1930s. 

And yet, there are different studies showed that hemp is no more dangerous than other usual products.

The medical cannabis refers to the parts of the herb cannabis used as a physician-recommended form of medicine or herbal therapy. It has effect in the treatment of glaucoma, HIV, scelorosis and other medical disordes. 


In the Netherlands, you were allowed to posses a small quantity of cannabis (weed or hashish) because you were allowed to buy some in the coffee-shops. From now on, a new legislation change the practice of the marijuana. The Weed Pass (Wietpass), ban foreign people from the coffeee Shops of Holland, which sell grass and hashish.

Actually, Dutch used to buy their weed from any coffee shops they wanted, from now on they will have to register themself in one of them and get weed just from this one only. For the tourist, it is not allowed to buy weed anymore, the tenants of this stores are not really satisfied you can imagine. The Wietpass is already apply in three different provinces; the Limburg, the Brabant and the Zeeland. And in january 2013, the law will be effective in all the netherlands.