A free, self-guided GPS audio walk through the side of Amsterdam's cannabis story the coffeeshops don't tell: the growshops, breeders and back offices that built the industry behind the smoke. 6 stops across three districts — De Pijp, a ferry crossing to Amsterdam-Noord, and Oost — from Europe's first growshop to the union that negotiated the coffeeshop rulebook with the city. Companion walk to Amsterdam: The Cannabis City That Never Legalized. Walk it on location with GPS, or follow along from anywhere.
14.2 km · about 3.3 hours total (walking + narration)
The company that taught Europe to grow its own was killed off by a bankruptcy, not a police raid.
He didn't open a coffeeshop to sell weed. He opened one because nobody else would sell his.
The first industrial hash machine in the world was a modified clothes dryer — which is the most Amsterdam thing I know.
An industry the whole world can name got its rulebook written by the shopkeepers, in an office with nothing on the door — for a product still illegal to supply.
The tolerance everyone photographs was defended, in the end, with a spreadsheet.
Fifty to a hundred tons of hemp, per ship. Three centuries before the coffeeshop, that's what this building was for.
Start the walk · How it works · Read the story: The Dryer, the Ropewalk, and the Union: Where Amsterdam's Cannabis Industry Was Actually Built