The Dutch are using common sense in managing adult use and medical cannabis during coronavirus lockdown
All businesses selling cannabis and hashish were ordered to shut, along with sex clubs and saunas, when the Dutch government imposed on March 15 measures to curb the COVID-19 epidemic.
A limited reopening has been allowed to avoid black market drug deals and ensure supplies of medicinal cannabis. With coronavirus regulations prohibiting gatherings of people, however, buyers are no longer permitted to stay for a smoke.
“What we saw is that people rushed to the coffee shops to buy something,” Nijmegen Mayor Hubert Bruls said in an interview.
“We decided the next day, along with the government, that people can at least pick something up.”
Bruls said Dutch authorities wanted to avoid driving the sales underground to an unregulated black market.
“It’s a choice between two evils because you can say ‘close the coffee shop’ but then we know one thing for sure, that the illegal trade will come back.”
Read more at the New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2020/03/31/world/europe/31reuters-health-coronavirus-netherlands-coffeeshops.html
