If you’ve ever spent a few days in Amsterdam smoking weed, you can thank Gedoogbeleid – the Dutch word for the policy of tolerance that has permitted the sale of cannabis via the country’s infamous coffeeshops.
This landmark legislation, introduced in 1976, came about after years of campaigning by advocates, including the D66 party, who initially developed the policy. The radical change in the law transformed the country, nowhere more so than its capital city. Amsterdam quickly became a global hub for cannabis tourists wishing to take advantage of relaxed drug laws unseen anywhere else in the world at the time. The Dutch coffeeshop culture flourished – by 1994, there were approximately 750 in Amsterdam alone. But behind this success, a problem has quietly lurked. Every product sold under the gedoogbeleid policy was bought illegally by the coffeeshops. The cultivation and importation of the very same cannabis sold by these shops has always been prohibited by Dutch law. This contradiction earned it the nickname ‘the back door policy’ because once through the back door of the coffeeshop, cannabis became pretty much safe. Like telling a baker they can sell bread but criminalising flour.
The D66 party, not content with the paradoxical tolerance of consumption but no safe supply, has continued campaigning for a fully legal cannabis market for decades. They were instrumental in disrupting the status quo once again in 2017 when they introduced a bill to the Tweede Kamar, the Dutch Government’s House of Representatives, that proposed to replace the old model of tolerance with a regulated market.
The proposal was successfully voted in, but shortly afterwards, the Dutch went to the polls in a nationwide election. The results led to a new coalition government with D66 joining its ranks. But the political parties that made up the coalition came from both sides of the political spectrum, struggling to agree on common ground when it came to the issue of cannabis. The two Christian parties in the coalition strongly opposed a regulated cannabis cultivation industry, doing their best to limit the proposed trials. The VVD party, which had historically been against cannabis reform, performed a policy U-turn in 2016, joining D66 in championing a new, pragmatic approach to cannabis.
Eventually, after another bill to decriminalise supply failed to be voted into law, the coalition government agreed to run a phased experiment, beginning in 2023 and running until 2027. Called wietexperiment, the trial is running in 10 of the 102 Dutch cities that have coffeeshops, and includes ten cultivators who are licensed to supply cannabis flower and hash.
The first phase launched in just 2 of the 10 designated cities, with only 3 out of the 10 licensed cultivators ready to begin operations. The rollout faced numerous hurdles: securing facilities large enough to house industrial-scale greenhouses and growrooms, banking obstacles preventing companies from opening accounts, and the need for entirely new electricity substations to power the energy-intensive growing operations.
I also find the high lovely; it feels more like weed did 30 years ago, much more natural and just nice
Despite these challenges, the experiment appears to be flourishing. Paul Delpa, mayor of Breda, one of the cities taking part in the trial, believes the experiment is already proving to be beneficial. Last year, he told Dutch News that the trial was about safety, referring not only to the increase in violent crime associated with drugs that the country has seen in recent years, but also to the high standards enforced on the licensed cultivators.
“The Dutch policy for weed is quite devious. People can buy it legally in coffee shops, but the production of the weed and the buying part (the back door) of the shop owners is illegal. That means there’s a big criminal world that thrives on producing the weed and selling it to the shops. That needs to change,” Delpa said.
The back door closes
April 7th marked a crucial milestone, the day when participating coffeeshops had to stop selling traditional ‘back-door’ weed and exclusively offer regulated products. Consumer feedback has been largely positive. Those who have access to the new legally supplied cannabis seem impressed. “It’s been a year now since the weed experiment started. I think it’s successful. Clean weed with no weird aftertastes is really important to me, personally. I also think the price is really good; I don’t need some strawberry smoothie or whatever nonsense. Just pure, unadulterated weed,” wrote –Snoepie– on Reddit.
“I also find the high lovely; it feels more like weed did 30 years ago, much more natural and just nice. I live in Helmond and now I make a trip to Tilburg once a month and come back with 30 grams; I don’t want that crap from here anymore.”
Not everybody is happy, though. Some consumers feel there is a lack of quality and variety, especially in the hash on offer. For this reason Dutch authorities decided to allow participating coffeeshops to continue to sell back-door hash alongside legally produced products after April 7th, until June 10th, giving licensed hash producers a bit more time to get their processes in order.
An ideal solution would be to create the possibility to import Moroccan hash legally as part of the experiment.
Derrick Bergman, the chairman of the Union for the Abolition of Cannabis Prohibition (VOC), has been embedded in Dutch cannabis culture since the 1990s. Speaking to leafie, he welcomed the trials, but felt they had taken too long to come to fruition.
“We as VOC have always said that the experiment is too little too late, but still a step in the right direction. The experiment has now been about eight years in the making and has suffered all kinds of delays and practical problems.
“Up until now, all the participating coffeeshops have been allowed to sell both the new regulated products and their old ‘illegal’ products. This will change on April 7; from that date, they can only sell regulated products. Some coffeeshop owners want to postpone this date, because they feel there’s not enough variety, quality and quantity, especially when it comes to hash.”
Bergman argues for a more flexible approach, stating that the coffeeshops should be able to offer both regulated and unregulated products as the industry transitions from illegal to legal supply. “If a supermarket introduces organic products, they don’t throw out the non-organic products but keep them on the shelves as long as consumers buy them. This organic approach would have been preferable to a fixed date. On the other hand, we understand that from a scientific perspective, it’s convenient to have such a date.”
First “legal” batch: La Kalada’s Ice-o-Lator Frosted Sunsetz by Q-Farms, one of the licensed producers in the Dutch cannabis experiment. #wietproef pic.twitter.com/yMXDJvjr2q
— VOC Nederland (@vocnederland) April 6, 2025
When it comes to quality, Bergman has been impressed with the quality and price of the weed on offer so far, but less so with the extracts. “I haven’t tried a lot of hash and what I’ve tried was rather mediocre,” he says. “An ideal solution would be to create the possibility to import Moroccan hash legally as part of the experiment. Morocco has legalized cannabis for medical and industrial use and they have a lot of legal hash that isn’t sold yet. So the two countries could solve two problems at once. In the long run, we should have both domestic and imported hash and flower.”
The question remains whether this cultivation experiment will fully replace the back-door policy that has precariously served both locals and tourists for nearly half a century. The rocky beginning – with licensed suppliers covering less than 20% of the country’s coffeeshops – creates uncertainty about the programme’s future. But after decades of operating in a legal grey area, the Netherlands is finally taking meaningful steps toward reconciling its famously tolerant cannabis culture with the practical realities of supply chain regulation.
