Cultivation and production of recreational cannabis is illegal and unregulated — sourced exclusively from the black market.
Market · Netherlands · Recreational THC
After fifty years of tolerated retail, the Netherlands has legalised part of its supply.
Since 2025, the Closed Coffeeshop Chain Experiment (“Wietexperiment”) has replaced black-market supply with regulated, traceable cultivation across ten participating municipalities.
What changed: supply, distribution and consumption — before and during the pilot.
Before pilot · 1970s – 2025
Pilot project · 2025 – 2029
Supplier
Illegal · unregulated
Legal · regulated
10 licensed producers
Ten selected growers supply pre-approved coffeeshops with legal recreational cannabis. Minimum 6.5 t annual production capacity per grower.
Distributor
Tolerated retail
550+ coffeeshops
Recreational cannabis openly sold in coffeeshops — a regulated retail interface fed by an unregulated upstream.
Legal · regulated
78 coffeeshops approved
Ten municipalities and their approved coffeeshops take part in the trial, sourcing exclusively from licensed cultivators.
Customer
Legal purchase
Customers legally purchase recreational cannabis from coffeeshops, despite the upstream supply chain being illegal.
Legal purchase
Customers continue to legally purchase recreational cannabis from coffeeshops, now from a fully regulated, traceable supply chain.
Path to a permanent framework
A four-year experiment, with a 2029 horizon.
April 2025
Experiment begins.
Sept 2025
Hashish added to regulated supply.
Mid-2026
Trimbos, RAND Europe and Breuer Intraval to publish first major assessment.
2029
Scheduled end of experiment; informs national framework decision.
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Optional 18-month extension available.
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National framework expected to follow.
How Essence is positioned
One of ten Wietexperiment licences.
Essence holds a 95% stake in Growery B.V., one of the ten licensed Dutch cultivators. The site near Hellevoetsluis was engineered by Bosman Van Zaal and entered production in 2025.
A regulated industry deserves a regulated investor.
Essence Investment AG · Switzerland
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