Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
buy a drink), you can pop into any cof eeshop and light up, even if you didn't
buy your pot there.
Because of laws prohibiting the advertising of marijuana, the customer
generally must take the initiative to get the menu. Locals buy marijuana by
asking, “Can I see the cannabis menu?” In some places, there's a button you
have to push and hold down to illuminate the otherwise-invisible list of
creatively named strains of pot and hash.
h e Netherlands' recent ban on public smoking (designed to protect
workers from their customers' secondhand smoke) pertains to tobacco
smoke, but not pot smoke. h is
matters in coffeeshops because
Europeans generally mix their
marijuana with tobacco. It might
seem strange to an American, but
if a Dutch cof eeshop is busted...
it's because of tobacco. Shops have
developed a kind of “herbal tea”
mix as a tobacco substitute for
joints. Coffeeshops with a few
outdoor seats have a huge advan-
tage, as their customers who prefer
joints with a tobacco/marijuana
mix can legally light up outside.
But shops without the outdoor
option have struggled.
Because pot is retailed much like beer or cigarettes, varieties evolve
with demand. Several forms of the cannabis plant are sold. Locals smoke
the pressed resin of the cannabis plant (hashish) and the buds and leaf of
the plant (marijuana or grass). While each shop has dif erent brands, all
marijuana is either Indica or Sativa. Indica gets you a “stony, heavy, mellow,
couch weed” high. Sativa is light, fun, uplifting, and more psychedelic—it
makes you giggle.
Most of the marijuana you'll see these days is local. Growing technology
has improved (allowing for more exotic local strains), and it's much safer to
deal with Dutch plants than import marijuana from faraway lands. (Inter-
national trai cking is a whole dif erent legal complexity than growing and
selling your own domestic strain.)
Essentially legal since 1976, an impressive
variety of marijuana joints fi lls the sales racks
in Dutch cof eeshops.
