In a bright yellow room dotted with multicolored suns, Barney's Breakfast Bar serves eggs, pancakes, and the house special -- Sweet Tooth, the best marijuana on sale in Amsterdam.
At least that's what the judges at the Cannabis Cup decided last year. Now, Barney's and its coffee-shop rivals are gearing up for this year's edition of the contest. Beginning Nov. 24, close to 3,000 marijuana fans will spend five days in Amsterdam rating the very best in cannabis. That means a boom in business for the shop owners and for the Dutch economy.
"There's great demand for the winning product," said Derry Brett, a former engineer and the owner of Barney's. His shop has no corners; the fluid shapes create the feeling of floating when high, Brett said. "Cannabis is a huge business for Amsterdam," Winning the cup can increase a shop's sales by as much as 50 percent, the event's organizer said. The 1976 decriminalization of smoking marijuana contributed to the Dutch economy. Drugs were a 1.4 billion euro (US$1.36 billion) business worth 0.5 percent of gross domestic product in 1995, the last time the government collected such figures.
"It is a huge industry and growing," said Peter Cohen, an associate professor of sociology at the University of Amsterdam. "Cannabis creates jobs and income for people who may not otherwise have jobs, who then pay taxes to the government."
The government also collects taxes on income from marijuana -- as much as 52 percent depending on a shop's take.
"The Dutch government is doing so well with drug tourism," said Mike Esterson, the Cannabis Cup's promoter and organizer. "It's a cash cow for everyone involved."
A gram of marijuana sold in an Amsterdam coffee shop costs between 5 and 10 euros. Most shops also offer pre-rolled joints at an average price of 3 euros. Such sales can bring in more than a million euros a year for a shop, academics and economists estimated.
For every 20 euros a tourist spends stocking up on White Widow, White Smurf or Warlock marijuana, he or she spends 200 euros on food and lodging in the city, coffee-shop owners estimated. The 10.1 million visitors of all kinds who visited the Netherlands in 1999 spent 2.45 billion euros.
"It is certain that many tourists come to the city to see the deviance here, the drugs, the prostitution," said Peter Cohen, an associate professor of sociology at the University of Amsterdam.
The Cannabis Cup, first held in 1987, boasts its own headquarters, travel agency and concert program. And it's growing: Twenty-six of Amsterdam's coffee shops, the most the cup has ever hosted, will this year present their best specimens for critique.
Judges -- that means anyone who pays US$225 for the right to vote on Betty Boop's Bubble Gum marijuana and Bushmaster's Kali Mist hash -- have five days to sample the goods from the shops and vote in the Cup's headquarters.
The judges, mostly Americans, are transported by bus from the home office to the doors of each shop. They're asked to avoid other mind-altering substances, such as caffeine and alcohol.
While Dutch law permits the smoking of marijuana, it's illegal and punishable by law to grow more than 5 plants. Growing more than 1,000 plants is subject to a fine of as much as 125,000 euros and up to 6 months in prison. The possession and sale of hard drugs such as cocaine and heroin are also illegal.
Proprietors must have a license to sell marijuana, and while some have a license to also sell alcohol, most can only sell beverages like tea, coffee or juice. Other shops in the country are allowed to sell hallucinogenic mushrooms and herbal ecstasy.
The government monitors the coffee shops to see that the rules of the license are being followed.
‘ABUSE OF POWER’: Lee Chun-yi allegedly used a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a pet grooming salon and take his wife to restaurants, media reports said Control Yuan Secretary-General Lee Chun-yi (李俊俋) resigned on Sunday night, admitting that he had misused a government vehicle, as reported by the media. Control Yuan Vice President Lee Hung-chun (李鴻鈞) yesterday apologized to the public over the issue. The watchdog body would follow up on similar accusations made by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and would investigate the alleged misuse of government vehicles by three other Control Yuan members: Su Li-chiung (蘇麗瓊), Lin Yu-jung (林郁容) and Wang Jung-chang (王榮璋), Lee Hung-chun said. Lee Chun-yi in a statement apologized for using a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a
Taiwan yesterday denied Chinese allegations that its military was behind a cyberattack on a technology company in Guangzhou, after city authorities issued warrants for 20 suspects. The Guangzhou Municipal Public Security Bureau earlier yesterday issued warrants for 20 people it identified as members of the Information, Communications and Electronic Force Command (ICEFCOM). The bureau alleged they were behind a May 20 cyberattack targeting the backend system of a self-service facility at the company. “ICEFCOM, under Taiwan’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party, directed the illegal attack,” the warrant says. The bureau placed a bounty of 10,000 yuan (US$1,392) on each of the 20 people named in
The High Court yesterday found a New Taipei City woman guilty of charges related to helping Beijing secure surrender agreements from military service members. Lee Huei-hsin (李慧馨) was sentenced to six years and eight months in prison for breaching the National Security Act (國家安全法), making illegal compacts with government employees and bribery, the court said. The verdict is final. Lee, the manager of a temple in the city’s Lujhou District (蘆洲), was accused of arranging for eight service members to make surrender pledges to the Chinese People’s Liberation Army in exchange for money, the court said. The pledges, which required them to provide identification
INDO-PACIFIC REGION: Royal Navy ships exercise the right of freedom of navigation, including in the Taiwan Strait and South China Sea, the UK’s Tony Radakin told a summit Freedom of navigation in the Indo-Pacific region is as important as it is in the English Channel, British Chief of the Defence Staff Admiral Tony Radakin said at a summit in Singapore on Saturday. The remark came as the British Royal Navy’s flagship aircraft carrier, the HMS Prince of Wales, is on an eight-month deployment to the Indo-Pacific region as head of an international carrier strike group. “Upholding the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, and with it, the principles of the freedom of navigation, in this part of the world matters to us just as it matters in the
RSS