00:00You can buy and sell small amounts of cannabis without fear of prosecution in the Netherlands,
00:05but its commercial cultivation remains illegal.
00:08This is how observers describe the state of the cannabis market and its laws in the Netherlands.
00:13We went to meet Said, a second generation Moroccan in the Netherlands who has run a
00:17cafe selling soft drugs for 20 years in a suburb of Amsterdam.
00:22We asked him about the difficulties he faces in his business and how drugs are purchased
00:26and sold to customers.
00:28The thing with coffee shops, one of the things you can only have 500 grams inside.
00:34If you have 501 grams and they come inside to check your business, they will close you
00:40for like two weeks.
00:42The second time, you have more than 500 again, they will close you definitely.
00:48They come and check and they check some people's pockets and somebody has drugs, they shut you
00:53down.
00:54So it's a really delicate business.
00:56If you sell a customer more than five, you're breaking the law and they find out they close
01:01you.
01:02We can sell this.
01:03We can sell the weed.
01:04We can sell the hash.
01:06We can buy it, but if they see us buying it, we're trafficking.
01:11So that's against the law.
01:13We can buy it, we can buy it, but they cannot see us buying it.
01:25The Dutch Opium Law prohibits the cultivation, sale, delivery, carrying and transportation
01:31of narcotics within or outside the Netherlands, except for the use and sale of cannabis under
01:36specific circumstances and conditions.
01:39These conflicting laws in the Netherlands mean that a cafe owner cannot obtain a bank loan,
01:45as can a bar owner who sells alcohol.
01:48This policy forces them to convert their white money into black money.
01:52Everything that happens in the coffee shop, completely transparent.
01:55You know, there's a stigma.
01:56People think that we launder money.
01:58But actually, nowadays, we make money black because what happens is 70% of everybody that comes
02:07in here, they pay with a debit card with online money.
02:11But all the weed that we buy or all the cannabis we buy, we need to do cash.
02:15So I cannot go to a grower and pay with my bank card.
02:18So what do we do?
02:19We go get 10 bank cards and every day go to the ATM, get the money from the ATM.
02:25So I have white money on my account, I take it out of the ATM with thousands at a time,
02:31and then it's black again, right?
02:33It's because it's disappeared.
02:34And then I can use it to pay the grower or the supplier for the cannabis.
Comments