Comments on: Amsterdam Coffeeshops FAQ – Everything you need to know and more

By: Roger

Roger — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 21:41:30 +0000

Hey Tom, five years! I admire someone with a long-term plan like that. As mentioned in a few places around here, you can only buy 5 grams per shop per day, and they don’t really offer bulk discounts even in those quantities. They stay really strict about that rule (along with the rule about having to be at least 18 years old) so Amsterdam is not a good place to buy in bulk. It’s an admirable goal though, so keep dreaming big.

By: Tom

Tom — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 21:11:44 +0000

hello,me and my friends want to go in about 5 years or so and i want to no how much 1kg of quality weed would be

By: Me

Me — Wed, 20 May 2009 23:35:21 +0000

Thanks for the article – pretty much ties up with my personal experiences of Amsterdam plus a bit more I wasn’t aware of before reading this Personally, I’d give a plug to Amnesia (just round the corner from Grey Area) for a great “American Cafe” ambience & service – lovely apple pie, though the very nice “Magnolia” may have helped

Ta muchly,
an old & experienced chap who’s looking forward to some ice-o-lator next month…

By: Lee

Lee — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 16:55:53 +0000

Hey Roger! Awesome FAQ you have up there, it has really been helpful.

I’m traveling to Amsterdam in June and was really hoping to get a hold of shrooms. Heard that they were banned but I’ve also been reading reports that they might lift it. Is it true?

Also is the high of “philosophers stones” the same as shrooms and are they still legal?

Thanks in advance!

By: Roger

Roger — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 01:30:25 +0000

Copius, Good news. You’ll definitely be able to smoke spliffs inside most coffeeshops, though you’ll have to go into a special section in most of them. I wrote a post about some of the changes since the smoking ban, which may interest you:
http://www.amsterdamlogue.com/amsterdam-coffee-shops-the-smoking-ban-and-other-changes.html

Those glassed-in areas that most shops now have are way cooler than they sound. In most cases, the front section of the shop is smoke-free, and then you enter a door into the main area, and then tobacco is okay inside there.

As far as other shops to check out, the small Barneys chain (formerly Barney’s Breakfast Bar) has great stuff, and one of their locations allows smoking and drinking as well.

Abraxis is another great one to check out, as is the whole De Rokerij chain. Those places all combine really nice ambiance with high quality cannabis. Have fun!

By: Copius

Copius — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 04:00:49 +0000

Roger- I’ll be in Amsterdam for St. Pats and a couple days afer. I’ve been before but still have a few questions.

First: My last visit was days after the smoking ban and no one could really enforce the rules and the rules varied from shop to shop. I thoroughly enjoy a good spliff , now that things have settled a bit will I be allowed to smoke inside the shops as I have in the past?

Also if you could recommend a few top notch connoisseur shops that would be excellent as well, been to Grey area, Dapmprking, and a few others in the past

Cheers mate , very useful site

By: Roger

Roger — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 03:47:25 +0000

Ry Ry, This is a pretty common question, especially with the recent tobacco smoking ban and whatnot.

I think it’s very likely that there will be fewer coffeeshops 3 years from now, but I’m fairly certain the coffeeshop culture will still be going strong.

The city government has said repeatedly that they don’t plan on closing down all the shops, even though they’ve limited some that were near schools and so forth.

The Dutch attitude is that by making and keeping this legal, it is much easier to control. They are very aware that if they close the coffeeshops they’ll just push the whole cannabis scene underground, and bring organized crime back into the game.

They also know that it’s a big reason to even visit in the first place for around 10% of their tourists, so they don’t want to give that up either. When you turn 18 and make it to Amsterdam yourself you’ll see how nicely it all works and how mellow it is.

By: Ry Ry

Ry Ry — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 03:38:17 +0000

Hey im 15 and smoked quite a bit and grown my own weed and i hope to take a trip to Amsterdam when im 18 and finished exams and stuff, do you think most coffeshops and laws will remain the same as they are now cos i cant wait to go and dont want to be dissapointed with strict new laws or even the coffeshops forced to close down aaaaaaa my head my explode ahaahaha

Cheers for info

By: Roger

Roger — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 02:07:40 +0000

Penny, That’s a really good question, and I’m going to add a whole new page to the general FAQ with a more complete answer, but here’s the short version.

Of course I’d never recommend that anyone break the law, but people do smuggle cannabis out of the Netherlands every day anyway, and some get caught.

If you take something with you on a train, you’ll probably be fine, but sometimes trains leaving the Netherlands have drug agents with search dogs on board, and they sweep the entire train while the train is going from one stop to another. You definitely don’t want to be unlucky enough to have that happen.

On flights from the Netherlands to the US you’ll often have luggage inspected by DEA agents with dogs before they allow you to leave with it, so this would be terrifying if it happened to someone bold enough to tempt fate. Similar things have been known to happen on flights within Europe, but not as often.

A friend of mine used to buy a greeting card in Amsterdam and flatten some of the strongest hash (not weed) he could find (Ice-o-lator) into it, and mail it to another friend’s house with a different name as the recipient. It always made it fine, but it’s still probably too risky for many people.

By: penny

penny — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 15:25:09 +0000

plz do tell the safest method to bring a bit back to France and post back to US or take on plane.