Скачать или смотреть Ten Dutch producers allowed to grow cannabis as part of a government-run experiment

(7 Apr 2025)
RESTRICTIONS SUMMARY:

ASSOCIATED PRESS
Huissen, Netherlands - 7 April 2025
1. Close up of cannabis plant
2. Workers at cannabis farm
3. Various of cannabis plants and workers
4. Various tracking shots of rows of cannabis plants growing
5. Close up of cannabis plant
6. SOUNDBITE (English) Benjamin Selma, head grower at Hollandse Hoogtes:
“My hope is that especially in the Netherlands we can raise the bar and we can bring top, high quality to the Dutch people. Hopefully, it gets legal fully and we can go worldwide, so I would just love for this to be a success.”
7. Various of cannabis plants and workers
8. SOUNDBITE (Dutch) Frans van Dijk, CEO of Hollandse Hoogtes:
“Finally, the legally grown cannabis.”
9. Wide of staffer’s applause at small ceremony
10. Mid of cakes
11. Close of cake decorated with the words ”Space Cake”
12. Piece of cake being cut
13. SOUNDBITE (English) Rick Bakker, commercial director at Hollandse Hoogtes:
“Like, weed was sold here legally for 50 years, but the production was never legal, so it's finally time to end that crazy, unexplainable situation and make it a legal, professional sector again.”
14. Various of cannabis plants and workers
15. SOUNDBITE (English) Benjamin Selma, head grower at Hollandse Hoogtes:
“Pretty much everything that we know today, it was still illegal in many countries to even grow or research. So, we still have yet a lot to learn about this plant. But indeed, all the foundation comes from the legacy growers that set the pathway for what we know today as cannabis, indeed."
16. Various of cannabis plants and workers
STORYLINE:
Despite its reputation as a marijuana haven, growing cannabis was still illegal in the Netherlands.

But as of Monday, ten cannabis producers are allowed to sell their wares as part of a government-run experiment.

Some 80 coffeeshops from ten cities around the Netherlands are now only allowed to sell legally grown cannabis from licensed producers.

Advocates hope that will end a long-standing legal anomaly - that you can buy and sell small amounts of weed without fear of prosecution in the Netherlands, but growing it commercially remains illegal.

“Weed was sold here legally for 50 years, but the production was never legal. So it's finally time to end that crazy, unexplainable situation and make it a legal professional sector,” Rick Bakker, commercial director at Hollandse Hoogtes, one of the ten growers, told the Associated Press.

His company's indoor growing facility in Bemmel, near the German border, is indistinguishable from the surrounding greenhouses producing tomatoes and peppers.

The company can produce 200 kilograms (440 pounds) of weed, which isn’t enough to meet demand in nearby Arnhem and Nijmegen.

But the company hopes to supply top quality cannabis and increase production in the future.

"We still have yet a lot to learn about this plant," said Benjamin Selma, head grower at Hollandse Hoogtes.

AP video by Aleks Furtula

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