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Dutch green-party, GroenLinks, is the big winner of the Amsterdam city and borough elections held Wednesday 3rd of March. After securing eight of the 28 seats in the counsel of the city’s most important and international borough, Amsterdam-Centrum, GroenLinks is ready to actualize their election promise to have the city of Amsterdam grow pot in order to supply the city’s many coffeeshops.

Under the drug policy of the Netherlands, the sale of cannabis products in small quantities is allowed by licensed coffeeshops. The coffeeshops (in Dutch written as one word) were introduced in the 1970s after the drugs laws changed with the explicit purpose of keeping hard and soft drugs separated.

There is an on-going contradiction concerning the Dutch coffeeshops, as they are allowed to sell cannabis over counter, but they are not allowed to purchase their own supply. There have been proposals for remedying the situation by, for instance, the GroenLink’s proposition of controlled growing of cannabis to replace imports of ambiguous legal status. It seems that with yesterday’s victory the green-party has its mandate to make this happen for the city of Amsterdam.