Pubdate: Sun, 01 Dec 2002
Source: Winnipeg Sun (CN MB)
Copyright: 2002 Canoe Limited Partnership
Contact:  http://www.fyiwinnipeg.com/winsun.shtml
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/503
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/pot.htm (Cannabis)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/area/Netherlands

DUTCH HOST HASH BASH

30 Years Of Legal Marijuana

HAARLEM, Netherlands -- The water pipe stood two metres tall, encircled by 
people puffing on its 64 mouthpieces.

Elsewhere in the room, a new machine rolled out 300 marijuana joints in 
minutes. Free hash was passed around.

It was the start of a three-day Hash and Weed Festival on Friday evening. 
The aging pioneers of the Dutch marijuana culture, watched by hundreds of 
young aficionados, gathered in a gymnasium to mark the 30th anniversary of 
the first "coffee shop" that openly sold reefers like cups of coffee.

"This celebration honours the world's most successful marijuana experiment: 
the Dutch coffee shop system," said Pete Brady, an organizer and writer for 
Cannabis Culture Magazine.

The seeds of Dutch drug tolerance were planted in 1969 when two 
entrepreneurs with a taste for marijuana started selling cannabis plants 
from a houseboat, calling themselves the Lowlands Weed company.

In 1972, Wernard Bruining opened Mellow Yellow -- then called a "tea house" 
- -- on the Amstel River in Amsterdam, the Dutch capital that is now a Mecca 
for marijuana smokers.

Progressive Drug Policies

The weekend festival was a tribute to three decades of progressive drug 
policies in the Netherlands and to the men, like Bruining, who founded a 
culture.

Another of the pioneers at Friday's celebration was (Old Ed) Holloway, now 
86, a cannabis cultivator who moved to the Netherlands in the 1970s from 
California. Holloway taught Dutch marijuana growers how to use genetic 
plant breeding techniques that increased the potency and yield of their crops.
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MAP posted-by: Tom