I am going bk to Amsterdam in 9 weeks time the last time I was there will be nearly ten years ago how many of you have been and wots your favourite coffee shops and strains?
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I heared the best Coffe Shops are the little ones n less knowed by tourists, were ya can find only local people.
About strains, the best ones are no made in Amsterdamn or Holland: ya can but it vĂa Internet to the original breeders or Seeds BanksâŠ
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Go to voyagers. Check out âtester tuesdaysâ It Is a good little shop.
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Definitely check out Original DampkringâŠ
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The problem is that you will be very lucky if they sell you anything in local coffeeshop outside Amsterdam. Amsterdam has an exemption for selling to tourists. In other cities this is forbidden.
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Being used to 93/2005 Ămsterdam ambience Iâve zero motivation to go and see Aâdam now⊠donât wanna spoil some nice memoriesâŠ
Ds
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You should definately try Utopia Haze at Barneyâs Farm, what a great high and taste. 
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Are ya sure bout it? Couse at least 5 years ago, Holland had the biggest CoffeShop in the frontiers with another countries (like Belgium) in order to sell foreigner people⊠Am I wrong?
N how laws in E.U. allowed this discrimination between diferents nationalities?
But I suppouse things can change a lot in 5 yearsâŠ
Anyway, everybody knows that the most of the âstuffâ selled in Holland CoffeShops are producted outside HollandâŠ
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Friend, Derric prefers the Barneys UtopĂa Haze, n overall the Barneys Acapulco Gold, growed in Monte Adentro outdoors. It isent a joke: he said it in public. N all the other people who works in Barney n taste the âMonte Adentro onesâ, they saids the same that his/her bossâŠ
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It is the law from 2012 I thinkâŠ
I think that the law can be different for citizens and foreigners and it is not bad discrimination if there is public interest (in this case so called troubles with drug tourism).
After a national ban on the purchase of marijuana by foreigners in other Dutch cities, such as Maastricht and Rotterdam, Hollandâs capital has been under pressure to introduce similar restrictions.
Eberhard van der Laan, Amsterdamâs mayor, has refused to enforce the ban in a city where up to a third of its annual seven million tourists take advantage of the countryâs famous cannabis cafes.
âIt has been decided that Amsterdam law enforcement authorities will not attach any priority to enforcing the local residence requirement,â he wrote in a letter to the government.
The national ban was introduced because Dutch cities on the border with Belgium and Germany had complained that drug tourism attracted crime and unwelcome visitors.
The legislation was opposed by Amsterdam because the city has 220 âcoffee shopsâ, or cafes, licensed to sell cannabis, sales that represent a major source of revenue for the local authorities and a big attraction for millions of tourists.
Source: Tourists exempted from ban on smoking cannabis in Amsterdam
Actually in about 2012 there were few other changes in Dutch marijuana law that made also growing MJ for seed production illegal so many seed companies had to move their seed production to other countries. Most of them have their breeders in Spain now.
Till 2012 small hobby growing was tolerated. There were also large illegal commerical grows (but there were no risk of jail time I think). Licensed coffeeshops could buy grass in wholesale on the black market in cash. This was tolerated by gov, but coffeeshops were denied the possibility to buy it officially and putting the costs into their accounting costs. The result was pretty high tax - they had zero costs and so all the income from retail sales of marijuana was effectively a profit. That is a price for government being blind 
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Maybe some Dutch member of OG can help us shine more light on it⊠
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thatâs basically how vancouver works too, but thereâs only a couple of actual cafes
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I can see quite lot of licensed dispensaries ⊠Are those cafes you are talking about?
Iâve read that there is 30.000 CAD annual fee for the license or 1.000 CAD if you are non-profit⊠That is great attitude from the city!
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no i mean like the vansterdam cafe where you bring your own weed and smoke inside, they sell pastries and food/drink. cafes you can smoke in.
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It Is stange, cos Cannabis Clubes here, as all our PĂșblico Services, can not be restricted to anybody under nacionality, race, religions, sex or political factors⊠N I thought it was the same in all E.UâŠ
Thanks for look for info to me! Salud!
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I would do some internet work and make a list of a few coffeeshops that are known for organic herb. Most of the shops are oriented towards tourists and have a reputation for selling unflushed, uncured chemical buds.
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I second this motion. Hands down my favorite spot and used to be the best spot for hash as well
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I was there in December last year. One of my favorites has always been the the Bluebird, on Sint Antoniobreestraat.
Itâs toruist and commercial, but they make an awesome cup of mint tea there, and it has a great view of the street life.
I visited a lot of different shops while there, I would echoe the other comments, that find a smaller place off the beaten path is better, The Grey Area if still open was nice, but very tiny.
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Just thought this was interestingâŠI canât personally comment on anything prior to the mid-1980s, when i first started to smoke, and then rather quickly buy and sell pot in New York City at the age of 15. Many of my older friends are dying in their '60s, mostly from not taking care of themselves. Iâm in the last year of my 40s and am both preparing myself and being prepared for the day when the crue that took care of me will no longer be around. Shit, Iâll have to take care of myself all by myself lol! Anyway, they passed values and know-how down to me, as well as memory. So hereâs to recording history, and remembering itâs all somebodyâs story of what they remember. As with any other history, the more voices, the better. Then maybe the memory isnât as easily monopolized or manipulatedâbe it through malice or just too much marijuana smoke.
"
ONCE UPON A TIME
THE HISTORY OF THE COFFEESHOPS
After the swinging sixties, Amsterdam welcomed its first coffeeshop in 1972, on the Weesperzijde. It was a logical consequence of an ever growing group of friends and friends of friends who shared the same hobby: smoking hashish and marijuana. In those days they didnât call it a coffeeshop, it was called a teahouse.
The owner and founder of the first teahouse, named Wernerd, made history without even knowing it. They dared to gamble and opened a shop called Mellow Yellow. Our government didnât do anything because they ware advised by experts that heroin and other hard drugs were much more dangerous and that softdrugs could keep people from using these heavy drugs.
Of course there were places in Amsterdam other than Mellow Yellow were you could buy hashish like the Melkweg, Paradiso and other places were lots of youth gathered, but the problem was that the dealers at these places also sold harddrugs. The real success was the coffeeshop. There was still no competition, the quality was good and the narcotic department of the Amsterdam Police-force consisted of six cops driving en old VW-beetle. Mellow Yellow was so successful that they decided to close during the day. Six oâclock in the evening, every pot smoker in Amsterdam knew, was the time to arrive at Mellow.
Whenever somebody is successful in business, others soon follow. After 1975 the coffeeshop business started to grow. The most famous example of this is without doubt The Bulldog, established in 1975 by Henk de Vries in a former sexhouse in the Red Light district. Henk concentrated on another segment of the market, not only did he aim for the old fashioned hippie who had known pot for tens of years, he aimed for the man in the street. For this reason, de Vries still calls his shop the first reel coffee shop. In those days the demand for marijuana was booming and it arrived with shiploads from Colombia, Indonesia and other exotic countries: Dutch business sense was flourishing.
In 1973 Amsterdam counted 1500 hard drugs users and the Chinese Mafia was in control. In the years that followed the numbers of addicts kept rising and in 1977 when there ware already more than 5000 users, police and the administration of justice decided it was time for action. In three months time 3000 Chinese ware busted and brought to the plane with a one-way ticket to the Far-East. The gap thus created by the Dutch government was soon filled with many small Turkish organisations and the little insight the police had in the handdrugs scene was gone. This was the beginning of Turkish drugs retailers. The police had their hands full with the more dangerous hard drugs, so they decided to stop prosecuting the weed and hash users.
On the 1st of November in 1976 the Opium law was changed. From now on the police and justice would make a distinction between drugs with an unacceptable health risk and hemp products. Thirty grams of hashish was no longer a felony but now a misdemeanour.
When Yellow Mellow was founded, 1 smoked my first cigarette and this made me stoned already. My first joint, I donât remember it very well, was lit in '75 or '76. 1 really, really liked it and went to the coffeeshop more often to take hash home or to have a smoke in there with some good friends, standing around en old gramophone. There was plenty of good stuff in those days, and I tried them all. The Thai sticks, Durban Poison, Acapulco Gold, Oaxacan Gold, Hawaiian, Nepalese, Menali. Afghany, Marrocan, Red and Yellow Lebanese and much more. I spent more and more time and money in the coffeeshop, but fortunately you could always taste something of the stuff others had bought or brought. During this changing of goods we played chess, backgammon and listened to music.
Because I was never that very good at school nor in sports, I spent most of my days in coffeeshops, talking with other hash-lovers about growing and smoking. Next to this I was reading magazines about my new hobby and 1 listened to the stories from the old-timers. At this point 1 realised it was the time for me to travel to other countries ware the hashish coma from, to study the plants. In summer I went to Marocco and in winter India and Thailand ware the places to be. I made my own hashish and tried to learn as much as possible about growing and other processes coming with the making of hashish. What a hobby!
We ware smoking good stuff from different countries, but not much homegrown, this mainly tasted like spinsch. At the end of the seventies Wernerd (him again) came into my favourite shop with real Hawaian. It really blew everybodyâs mind; the Hawaiian was grown in Holland! A knockout! Unfortunately there still was little available, and still there was littleâ knowledge about how to grow good weed.
The demand grew bigger and bigger, more shops opened, which resulted in more customers: demand grew again. In 1975 there were about ten coffeeshops and at the end of the seventies, there were dozens. In their early years shops treated their products with care, like expensive wines ere treated. In later years mass-production led to a downfall of knowledge of marijuana and hashish. The same ships still] came to our harbours, but they carried inferior qua14. if you wanted to find first class stuff, you had to look over the loads with a magnifying glass. Searching in coffeeshops for good hashish was like searching for a needle in the well known haystack, If you finally found something good. You 'd better buy everything there was before it was all gone, bought by other connoisseurs.
Taking all this into consideration, the idea came to my mind to start my own place together with my best friend. It had to be a place for âconnoisseursâ where you would be able to buy anything you wanted. No more profited bags with standard amounts. Even if you wanted to buy just one joint, it had to be possible, and the finest quality all over, The atmosphere had to be one of a friendly smile end a word of advice and information on our products for every customer. This first quality coffeeshop in Amsterdam we called âDe Tweede Kamerâ. This can be translated as âyour second homeâ. It also has political connotations. The Dutch âTweede Kamerâ can be compared with the American Congress or the British Common House.
From the first day we opened (with hashish loaned from others), we ware a sensation. With top quality, cut up end packed right in front of you, we conquered a good portion of the Amsterdam market for stuff end weed with good quality. Around this time -1985- the first really good homegrown weed came on the market, and it came in a constant flow. Grown in greenhouses next to tomatoes end flowers, Dutch farmers together with some American friends produced this weed. The called it Orange Bud, and from the moment we had this on our list, we became famous in Amsterdam. Quality, good info end mouth-to-mouth advertising made us famous.
In 1993 Cafe De Dampkring opened its doors. This cafe is a lot bigger than De Tweede Kamer, but the philosophy is the same, something the regular customers know end appreciate very much. Tourists also know the Dampkring and they enjoy the beautiful interior and the extensive weed end hashish menu very much. The combination of smokables and beer or wine was a new one for us, This combination can be very pleasant but we warn everyone: smoking end drinking together should be done with care.
The Dampkring staff end personel try to please their customers as much as possibie. We have been doing this for years now, end the members of the Cannabis Cup jury last year agreed to this. We had entered the Cup before. but only last year (1998) we were really prepared for the great numbers of jury members. This resulted in winning four out of six Cups. With all our hard work, good products end enthusiasm, we had a great week last year, for which we would like to thank you again end again. Because of the prices you awarded us, our shop hes improved once more end many new customers found their way to our cafe. This year we will of course enter again, end try to recapture this anniversary-cup. So, thank you all for last year end we promise to give you a week in Amsterdam youâll not soon forget!
Many Thanks
De Dampkring.
dampweb@xs4all.nl"
âsource www.http://www.channels.nl/knowledge/24638.html
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You can try Utopia Haze. It is really great