The Netherlands Government Announced a Start Date for Cannabis Pilot Program

The Netherlands government recently confirmed that it plans to start its pilot program on December 15 later this year. “The most recent planning shows that two legal growers are expected to be ready for delivery to coffee shops in the fourth quarter of 2023,” the Dutch government wrote. “This is sufficient to start the start-up phase of the experiment in Breda and Tilburg. In this phase, participating coffee shops from these municipalities may offer both legally grown and tolerated products. The next two growers are expected to start supplying coffee shops in Breda and Tilburg in February 2024.” Breda and Tilburg are located in the southern part of the country, near the border of Belgium.

The timeline for this program begins with a “start-up phase” that will last up to six months. “The initiative for the start-up phase was introduced by the mayors of Breda and Tilburg and embraced by Minister Ernst Kuipers of Health, Welfare and Sport and Minister Yeşilgöz-Zegerius of Justice and Security as an opportunity to start the experiment on a small scale around a legalized production and sales chain,” the government wrote.

The start-up phase is described as a sort of warm up time frame for businesses to adjust to the program, however the government notes that if “public order or safety is seriously threatened,” then they will stop the program prematurely. “The insights will be shared with all participating municipalities and used to improve processes and systems for a smooth transition phase,” the government stated.

After the start-up period ends, then the “transition phase” begins. “It is expected that all participating municipalities will be able to start the transition phase at the earliest at the end of the first quarter of 2024,” the government wrote. “In this transition phase, coffee shops in the participating municipalities may offer regulated products in addition to tolerated products.”

According to Forbes, there will be a six-week period where coffee shops can continue to obtain their cannabis products from illegal sources “while the new legal suppliers are phased in.” Following the transition phase, the experimental phase will begin. “From that moment on, participating coffee shop owners may only sell regulated cannabis,” the government added.

The Netherlands announced its plans for the pilot program years ago, and was intended to begin in 2020, but was delayed until 2022. In March 2022, the program received another delay, expecting the program to begin in Q2 2023. “Unfortunately, it has now become apparent that starting in 2022 is no longer realistic,” the letter stated last year. “The selection procedure of the remaining growers is taking longer than expected, and some growers are having trouble securing a location.”

Breda Mayor Paul Depla explained his disappointment that the program continued to be delayed. “It is clear that everyone who is in favor of the cannabis test is disappointed,” said Depla. Tilburg Mayor Theo Weterings also echoed his frustration. “Again delay—how much more can you delay. We expect that some MPs will now be scratching their heads, wondering: what is happening here?”

The Netherlands has never legalized cannabis, although it has long been associated with its “soft drugs” policy, called gedoogbeleid, which allows cannabis business owners to sell their product at coffee shops without being prosecuted. “Dutch coffeeshop policy has long been a subject of public debate. At the heart of the debate is the ambiguous status of cannabis: while the sale and use of cannabis for recreational purposes are tolerated, production and distribution are strictly prohibited,” the Netherlands government stated. “Under the current policy of toleration, selling and using are still criminal offences under Dutch law, but the authorities choose not to pursue or prosecute lawbreakers.”

Due to this policy, the number of coffee shops increased drastically. In 2007, data from Statista shared that an estimated 229 coffee shops were operating within the city of Amsterdam. The most recent data shows that 166 shops were operating, as of 2020. The Netherland government estimates that 570 coffee shops operate across the country’s 102 municipalities.

Amsterdam banned public consumption of cannabis in April 2018, and more recently a ban was also implemented in the Red Light District in May. The Amsterdam City Council approved the ban earlier in 2023. “Residents of the old town suffer a lot from mass tourism and alcohol and drug abuse in the streets,” the city council explained. “Tourists also attract street dealers who in turn cause crime and insecurity. The atmosphere can get grim especially at night. People who are under the influence hang around for a long time. Residents cannot sleep well and the neighborhood becomes unsafe and unlivable.” The city council added that the ban would “reduce nuisance.”

The Netherlands isn’t the only country to start implementing cannabis pilot programs. Fellow European Union (EU) country of Luxembourg, which recently legalized cannabis for personal use in June, began a pilot program to test out legal access to cannabis. Switzerland, which is not a part of the EU, began its own cannabis pilot program in January 2023.