Most countries would love to ban cannabis completely and still put people in jail for anything related to cannabis. Yet alcohol is available. Here in The Netherlands, you are allowed to drink up as soon as you hit the age of 16. And yes, it is very true that we have our famous coffeeshops here in The Netherlands, but there is a bigger story behind it. Only the consumer buying the cannabis is not a crime. The production and distribution of cannabis is still punishable by law.

The battle against a free canabis culture is still going on in 2020. Will I still be alive when the world has decriminalized cannabis? Will my children be able to consume cannabis without the risk of going to jail for that? How will this beloved plant survive another decade?

We can go way back in history to find out why this plant is being demonized by government officials, who never ever in their sorry lives consumed it, let alone grown it. It all started in the United States, where cannabis was being used to put minorities in jail. I’m talking about the early 1900’s, and in this time The US was known as the leader of the free world. As dumb as other countries are, they followed the policy of The Americans. Only one country went against these stupid laws, and it was my beloved Holland.

In 1970, The Netherlands was run by innovative people who tried to understand their people the best way that they can. A famous professor (Loek Hulsman) was all over the Dutch drugpolicies, and he was the guy responsible for ignoring the central laws of the UN. As brave as this man was, he send a fax to the UN, telling them The Netherlands will ignore these stupid laws regarding cannabis, simply because of the street criminality, which was growing huge in the 70’s. Later in the 70’s the first ”coffeeshops” would open up in The Netherlands, but tens of years earlier there was already people selling cannabis and hasj from undercover stores.

Professor Loek Hulsman fought really hard to open up the laws regarding cannabis. He did so with the cannabis, and his plans were to also open up the laws regarding stronger drugs, like XTC and cocaine. He did not succeed with this, but he was sure about his believes and he never stopped giving his all, until he died at the age of 85. He is still beloved in the country of Holland, and his spirit will forever be here.

We will succeed in the end. Most governments are finding out that they can not stop the cannabis movement anymore. Why is legalization still taking this long? Well, we can get into that, but I don’t want to get all conspiritoral on you. What I mean by that is, that we just have to take a look at Canada. You have people there who have been growing and selling cannabis for over 40 years. Last year, Canada legalized cannabis, for some part at least. People can grow around 4 plants for them self at home, which is better then 0 but still not enough as you can imagine. The other side of the legalization is that a couple of business owners can get a license to grow the cannabis without it being a crime. These licenses are only available for big time companies with big money, and you already guesed it, none of these companies have any ties with cannabis whatsoever. The ”small time” people who want to get in this branche are simply being out-licensed (I am not sure if that is a real word but you know what I mean).