Coffeeshops in the Netherlands: History, Regulations, and Current Status | EHLE

The name is misleading, and that was intentional. A Dutch coffeeshop isn't about coffee. It's about cannabis – and how a pragmatic trick from the early seventies became a model that has preoccupied the drug policy of half of Europe.

The story behind it is better than the myth usually told.

Where the Name Comes From

In 1972, Wernard Bruining and a few friends occupied a vacant bakery on Weesperzijde in Amsterdam. The idea: a tearoom where people could sit, talk, and smoke hashish. The model was the Tea Pads of the US jazz scene in the twenties and thirties.

The name came from a Donovan song: Mellow Yellow. This referred to the legend then circulating that one could get high on the smoke of dried banana peels. An insider joke that worked as a shop sign.

The choice of words was crucial. For a café or a coffeeshop, no special permit was needed. The harmless term was the camouflage under which a business could operate that, according to the legal situation at the time, was clearly forbidden. Sales initially went through a house dealer who sat at the counter as a guest.

Mellow Yellow remained unique for three years. In 1975, a regular customer followed suit with Coffeeshop Rusland, and in December of the same year, Henk de Vries opened The Bulldog. This is often referred to as the first coffeeshop – it was the third.

The punchline: The model existed for four years before the state reacted to it. The tolerance policy is not an invention of politics, but its response to something that was already happening.

The Tolerance Policy and Its Rules

In 1976, the Dutch government amended the Opium Act and made a distinction that was new at the time: hard drugs on one list, soft drugs on the other. The idea behind this was market separation. Anyone who can buy weed in a shop doesn't have to go to someone who also sells heroin.

From this came the Gedoogbeleid – the policy of regulated turning a blind eye. Cannabis remained formally prohibited, but its sale was not prosecuted under certain conditions. These conditions are essentially the same to this day:

• no advertising
• no hard drugs in the assortment
• no nuisance to the neighborhood
• no access and no sales to those under 18
• a maximum of five grams per person per day
• a maximum of 500 grams of stock in the shop

In 2012, the Ingezetenencriterium was added: access only for residents of the Netherlands. Legally, it applies nationwide, but it is enforced differently. In the border towns in the south, such as Maastricht, controls are in place. Amsterdam waives it.

The Backdoor Problem

The design flaw of the model has its own name: het achterdeurprobleem (the backdoor problem). Sales are allowed at the front, but purchasing is not allowed at the back. Cultivation and wholesale remained illegal throughout.

For operators, this meant a paradoxical situation: they run a tolerated business but must source their goods from an area that is subject to criminal prosecution. The origin, purity, and active ingredient content were thus structurally unchecked – precisely in the model that was supposed to stand for consumer protection.

Precisely this contradiction was the reason for what has been happening for some years now.

The Wietexperiment

Officially, it's called Experiment gesloten coffeeshopketen – Closed Coffeeshop Chain Experiment. The state has licensed ten producers who are allowed to cultivate legally. In ten participating municipalities, coffeeshops are allowed to sell only these regulated products.

The phases: The ramp-up phase started in December 2023 in Breda and Tilburg. From June 2024, coffeeshops in all ten municipalities were allowed to carry both tolerated and regulated products simultaneously. Since April 7, 2025, only regulated goods are permitted, and since September 1, 2025, this also applies to hashish. The experimental phase is set for four years.

Almere, Arnhem, Breda, Groningen, Heerlen, Maastricht, Nijmegen, Tilburg, Voorne aan Zee, and Zaanstad are involved. Amsterdam is explicitly not included.

For consumers, this primarily means tested goods with declared content, controlled by the Food and Consumer Product Safety Authority. There is plenty of criticism – from the industry, mainly regarding delays and the fact that the variety of strains from licensed producers initially lagged significantly behind what shops previously offered.

What Has Changed in Amsterdam

The city's relationship with cannabis tourism has noticeably cooled in recent years. Since 2023, smoking cannabis in public in the Red Light District has been prohibited. The number of coffeeshops has significantly decreased over the years due to municipal caps and distance rules from schools – nationwide, there is now only a fraction of the shops that existed in the nineties.

What remains: Consumption is limited to shops and private spaces. Anyone caught smoking outdoors in the wrong area risks a fine.

Other Models in Comparison

The Dutch model is no longer the only one.

In Spain, Cannabis Social Clubs have developed: non-profit associations that cultivate and distribute for their members. However, the legal situation there is significantly more uncertain than the number of clubs would suggest.

Uruguay was the first country to fully legalize in 2013, with sales through registered pharmacies and state control of cultivation. Canada followed nationwide in 2018, with licensed stores and provincially differing rules. In the USA, the situation varies from state to state and remains unresolved at the federal level.

The fundamental difference from coffeeshops is that everywhere else, the entire chain is legally regulated. For decades, the Netherlands only tolerated the retail outlet – and is now working to close this gap with the Wietexperiment.

And Germany?

The Cannabis Consumption Act has been in effect since April 1, 2024. Adults are allowed to possess limited quantities and cultivate for personal use; since July 2024, cultivation associations have been added as a regulated source. Coffeeshops in the Dutch sense do not exist – commercial sales are not foreseen.

The point one really should know concerns the return journey: taking cannabis across the border is importation and therefore punishable. Neither German nor Dutch regulations change this. What was bought in the coffeeshop stays in the Netherlands. German customs officers regularly check in border areas, and the explanation that it was legally purchased does not help.

This is not legal advice – we are glassblowers, not lawyers. But the point is clear enough that it should be mentioned.

What Remains of the Model

Fifty years after the occupied bakery, the environment has completely turned around. What was a trick in 1972 to camouflage an illegal business is now a regulated industry with licenses, laboratory analyses, and official controls.

What has not changed is the basic idea: A place where you sit, talk, and consume peacefully is preferable to a deal in a doorway. That was the argument of the hippies in the bakery, and it remains the argument of the legislator to this day.

Whether the Wietexperiment will ultimately lead to permanent regulation is an open question. It is a test series with evaluation, not a decided change of course. The results are likely to be read far beyond the Netherlands.

Conclusion

The coffeeshop is a piece of cultural history that emerged from a pun and a legal loophole. It has given the debate about cannabis policy a concrete image that everyone – proponents and opponents alike – has been grappling with ever since.

What it has incidentally shaped is the surrounding culture. The idea that consumption is about more than just the effect – about the place, the equipment, the company – grew up in these shops. The notion that a well-made bong of thick-walled glass brings more joy than one from a discount shelf spread at the same time. Nothing has changed about that to this day.