Amsterdam City Council Pushes For Legal Marijuana Production

A majority of Amsterdam city councillors, including members of all three parties currently in the country’s ruling coalition, have defied government policy and called for licenses to be issued for the production of marijuana.

This move follows the petition, in January this year, signed by the mayors of 54 different councils throughout the Netherlands, including the Amsterdam mayor Eberhard van der Laan, calling for an end to contradiction built into current legislation, which allows licensed coffee shops to legally sell marijuana but forces them to purchase it from illegal sources.

If successful, the regulation of this industry will, in the Netherlands at least, end the deplorable political hypocrisy that has surrounded this industry. No concrete estimates are available indicating the scale of Marijuana production in the Netherlands, but we do know that indoor marijuana production in the United States consumes 1% of all electricity in that country, despite the easy availability of bulk imports from both Mexico to their south and Canada to their north.

Did You Know: Marijuana is a plant-based stimulated which, when smoked or ingested, improves sex, makes food delicious and renders bad television watchable.

In taking this stand, Amsterdam joins other Dutch cities, including Eindhoven and Utrecht, who are already ignoring government policy and kicking off plans to regulate Marijuana production.