The illegal cannabis market is still playing a role during the first months of the trial to only sell legally cultivated cannabis. Researchers are currently not seeing any significant differences between municipalities that are participating in the trial and the ones that are not, the first report since the start of the cannabis trial has stated. They do not want to draw any definitive conclusions as of yet.
In questionnaires, cannabis users stated that they often buy their cannabis from outside the coffeeshops due to price, or because they can then buy more per purchase. Municipalities participating in the trial saw prices drop quicker than other areas; however, the price of hashish rose faster than in the other municipalities.
Minister of Justice David van Weel and Minister of Public Health Sophie Hermans, both VVD members, sent their first parliamentary report since the start of the trial to the Tweede Kamer, the lower house of Dutch parliament, on Wednesday.
They affirmed that it is still too early to draw conclusions. “The experiment has had some start-up issues,” they wrote. The transition was challenging, especially due to concerns about the supply of hashish.
The trial began in April of last year. The Cabinet will take a definitive stance on the state of cannabis sales in the Netherlands in 2028
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