Ecosunlite

The Netherlands government recently confirmed that it plans to start its pilot program on December 15 later this year.   “The most recent planning shows that two legal growers are expected to be ready for delivery to coffee shops in the fourth quarter of 2023,” the Dutch government wrote.   “This is sufficient to start the start-up phase of the experiment in Breda and Tilburg.   In this phase, participating coffee shops from these municipalities may offer both legally grown and tolerated products.   The next two growers are expected to start supplying coffee shops in Breda and Tilburg in February 2024.”

The timeline for this program begins with a “start-up phase” that will last up to six months.  “The initiative for the start-up phase was introduced by the mayors of Breda and Tilburg and embraced by Minister Ernst Kuipers of Health, Welfare and Sport and Minister Yeşilgöz-Zegerius of Justice and Security as an opportunity to start the experiment on a small scale around a legalized production and sales chain,” the government wrote.

The start-up phase is described as a sort of warm up time frame for businesses to adjust to the program, however the government notes that if “public order or safety is seriously threatened,” then they will stop the program prematurely.

After the start-up period ends, then the “transition phase” begins. “It is expected that all participating municipalities will be able to start the transition phase at the earliest at the end of the first quarter of 2024,” the government wrote. “In this transition phase, coffee shops in the participating municipalities may offer regulated products in addition to tolerated products.”

According to Forbes, there will be a six-week period where coffee shops can continue to obtain their cannabis products from illegal sources “while the new legal suppliers are phased in.”  Following the transition phase, the experimental phase will begin.  “From that moment on, participating coffee shop owners may only sell regulated cannabis,” the government added.

The Netherlands isn’t the only country to start implementing cannabis pilot programs. Fellow European Union (EU) country of Luxembourg, which recently legalized cannabis for personal use in June, began a pilot program to test out legal access to cannabis. Switzerland, which is not a part of the EU, began its own cannabis pilot program in January 2023.