Netherlands countries/nl.yaml
Users are effectively left alone, with confiscation the worst outcome for small amounts.[@gov] Commercial growing and dealing outside coffeeshops are prosecuted and carry prison.[@gov,exp] [The toleration policy dates to 1976.](/history/netherlands-toleration-1976/)
Supplying cannabis outside a coffeeshop is an offence.[@gov,ow11] Passing a joint is not pursued in practice, but there is no legal protection for giving cannabis to another adult.[@gov]
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Consumption is permitted inside coffeeshops and in private.[@gov] Many municipalities ban cannabis use in streets, around schools or in city centres through local by-laws, so public use depends on where you are.[@gov]
Coffeeshops sell openly to adults 18+, up to 5 g per person per transaction, under strict criteria: no advertising, no hard drugs, no nuisance, no minors.[@gov] A residents-only rule exists in law and is enforced by some municipalities, mainly in the south.[@gov] Many towns have no coffeeshop.[@kb24] [The 5-gram limit dates to 1996.](/history/netherlands-five-grams-1996/)
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Doctors have been able to prescribe medicinal cannabis since 2003.[@bmc] Pharmacies dispense it as dried flower from the government's [Office of Medicinal Cannabis … abis in the course of 2027, and will stop exporting to patients abroad at the end of 2026.[@mc26] The government plans a law ending the monopoly, so that companies can supply pharmacies directly, in mid-2028.[@mc26]
For many people abroad the Netherlands means the [coffeeshop](/culture/traditions/the-coff … The everyday word is [wiet](/culture/language/wiet/), borrowed from English weed.[@wikt] Every coffeeshop menu sorts its wares into [indica and sativa](/culture/language/indica-and-sativa/), old botanists' Latin that the Amsterdam seed trade turned into sales language, with the Cannabis Cup awarding Best Indica and Best Sativa since 1988.[@indicasativa] The Dutch idea travelled too: Dutch-born Antwerp activist [Joep Oomen](/culture/people/joep-oomen/) read Belgium's one-plant rule and founded Trekt Uw Plant, Belgium's first cannabis social club, in 2006.[@oomen] Tolerance is not the same as approval: in a 2025 Pew survey 45% of Dutch adults called using marijuana morally acceptable, 32% unacceptable and 20% not a moral question at all.[@pew26] [The Cannabis Cup began in Amsterdam in 1988.](/history/netherlands-cannabis-cup-1988/)
wcs, cedro, whm, cupsite, onh, wikt, pew26, indicasativa, oomen
Dutch researchers publish over a hundred papers on cannabis a year, 140 in 2025, and 21 cl … .maastrichtuniversity.nl/) has studied cannabis and driving on real roads since the 1990s.[@um20] Its 2020 trial, published in JAMA, had 26 users drive about 100 km at a time in a test car … afety or public order. Further measurements are needed to identify effects.[@followup2026]
Tolerated possession leaves no criminal record.[@gov] Drivers are subject to a per-se THC blood limit,[@euda_dd] and home growers can lose their tenancy even when not prosecuted.[@gov]
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The Opium Act's list of drugs covers every part of the hemp plant except the seeds, so seeds are sold openly.[@opiumwet] Cuttings are plants and fall under the growing ban, with the same practice of not prosecuting up to five plants.[@opiumwet] Supplying goods one knows are meant for professional cultivation is a separate offence under article 11a.[@opiumwet]
The toleration policy covers coffeeshops only; growing remains illegal, so a members' growing club has no footing.[@coov] A handful were founded from 2014.[@cnn16] The prosecution service told Amsterdam's Tree of Life in 2015 that its growing and sharing among members was punishable, though it chose not to prosecute actively.[@cnn16] Utrecht backed two clubs and asked for an Opium Act exemption, which the health ministry refused in 2014 because the clubs served no scientific or medical purpose; by 2016 nothing had been planted there.[@cnn14] The largest, the Frisian foundation Suver Nuver, posted home-made cannabis oil to thousand … ium Act and the Medicines Act but imposed no penalty, saying the choice was for lawmakers.[@rb21] No later national picture of clubs was found.[@coov]
Coffeeshop sales are tolerated but, outside the supply experiment, the cannabis they sell is grown illegally.[@gov] Police dismantled 895 growing sites in 2024, the first year below a thousand in a long time; in 2017 it was more than 4,600.[@ob25] The National Police put the fall down mainly to lack of capacity and lower priority rather than less growing, and note that drug networks increasingly bring plants in from abroad, for instance from Spain.[@ob25]
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On paper coffeeshops are for [residents only](/history/netherlands-residents-only-2012/): … may enter and buy, and owners are meant to check an identity document or residence permit.[@gov] Whether the rule is enforced differs from one municipality to the next, which is why visitors can still buy in some cities and not in others.[@kb24]
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The Netherlands has had fixed limits since a 2016 decree: 3 nanograms of THC per millilitre of blood, falling to 1 when cannabis is combined with alcohol, alongside the older offence of impaired driving.[@euda_dd] Police may stop and test at random; blood is taken at a hospital or police station.[@euda_dd] The maximum penalties are a fine of 6,700 euros, three months in prison and a ban of up to five years, rising steeply where there is injury or death.[@euda_dd]
The EU drugs agency's statistical bulletin records 5,315 cannabis-related drug law offences in the Netherlands in 2024, against 5,210 in 2023.[@euda_dlo] The number has halved from 11,658 in 2016; no separate count for use is reported.[@euda_dlo] Countries count these differently (offences or offenders, criminal or administrative), so the figure is not comparable across borders.[@euda_dlo]
Cannabis Freedom Index — Indica and sativa (atlas) Cannabis Freedom Index — Joep Oomen (atlas) 31 unchanged