Maastricht is a city and a municipality in the southeastern Netherlands. It is the capital and largest city of the province of Limburg. Maastricht is located on both sides of the Meuse, at the point where the Jeker joins it. Mount Saint Peter (Sint-Pietersberg) is largely situated within the city's municipal borders. Maastricht is adjacent to the border with Belgium and is part of the Meuse-Rhine Euroregion, an international metropolis with a population of about 3.9 million, which includes the nearby German and Belgian cities of Aachen, Liège, and Hasselt.
While recreational use, possession and trade of non-medicinal drugs described by the Opium Law are all technically illegal under Dutch law, official policy since the late 20th century has been to openly tolerate all recreational use while tolerating possession and trade under certain circumstances. This pragmatic approach was motivated by the idea that a drug-free Dutch society is unrealistic and unattainable, and efforts would be better spent trying to minimize harm caused by recreational drug use. As a result of this gedoogbeleid, the Netherlands is typically seen as much more tolerant of drugs than most other countries.
The prohibition of drugs through sumptuary legislation or religious law is a common means of attempting to prevent the recreational use of certain intoxicating substances.
De Wallen is the largest and best known red-light district in Amsterdam. It consists of a network of alleys containing approximately 300 one-room cabins rented by prostitutes who offer their sexual services from behind a window or glass door, typically illuminated with red lights and blacklight. Window prostitution is the most visible and typical kind of red-light district sex work in Amsterdam.
A head shop is a retail outlet specializing in paraphernalia used for consumption of cannabis and tobacco and items related to cannabis culture and related countercultures. They emerged from the hippie counterculture in the late 1960s, and at that time, many of them had close ties to the anti-Vietnam War movement as well as groups in the marijuana legalization movement like LeMar, Amorphia, and the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws.
Recreational drug tourism is travel for the purpose of obtaining or using drugs for recreational use that are unavailable, illegal or very expensive in one's home jurisdiction. A drug tourist may cross a national border to obtain a drug that is not sold in one's home country, or to obtain an illegal drug that is more available in the visited destination. A drug tourist may also cross a sub-national border to do the same, as in cannabis tourism, or purchase alcohol or tobacco more easily, or at a lower price due to tax laws or other regulations.
A gravity bong, also known as a GB, bucket bong, grav, geeb, gibby, yoin, or ghetto bong, is a method of consuming smokable substances such as cannabis. The term describes both a bucket bong and a waterfall bong, since both use air pressure and water to draw smoke. A lung uses similar equipment but instead of water draws the smoke by removing a compacted plastic bag or similar from the chamber.
The use of tobacco for smoking in New Zealand has been subjected to government regulation for a number of decades. On 10 December 2004, New Zealand became the third country in the world to make all indoor workplaces including bars and restaurants smoke-free. The smoking rate in New Zealand was about 8% as of 2023 when the new government planned to eliminate the nation's smoking ban to fund tax cuts.
A tobacco display ban, point-of-sale display ban or retail display ban is a measure imposed in some jurisdictions prohibiting shops and stores from displaying tobacco products.
The Bulldog is an Amsterdam-based company that owns and operates a chain of cannabis coffee shops, hotels, cafés and brand stores located in Amsterdam and Canada. The Bulldog has its own merchandising brand consisting of clothing, souvenirs and smoking accessories. The group logo consists of a cartoon figure of a bulldog on a round frame.
Mellow Yellow was the oldest cannabis coffeeshop in Amsterdam. It was squatted in 1972 then moved to a new building in 1978. It was forced to close at the start of 2017.
Checkpoint was a cannabis coffee shop in Terneuzen, the largest such in the Netherlands until it was closed in 2008 by the authorities because of reputedly having a too large supply of cannabis.
Minors and the legality of cannabis is one of the issues around the legalisation of cannabis, with most jurisdictions placing strict age limits in a similar way as is done with the drinking age for alcohol.
Josemansv Burgemeester van Maastricht is a European Union law case from 2010, concerning cannabis and the free movement of services in the European Union. The Second Chamber of the Court of Justice of the European Union pronounced its ruling on 16 December 2010.
Cannabis dispensaries in the United States or marijuana dispensaries are a type of cannabis retail outlet, local government-regulated physical location, typically inside a retail storefront or office building, in which a person can purchase cannabis and cannabis related items for medical or recreational use.
A cannabis retail outlet is a location at which cannabis is sold or otherwise dispensed, either for recreational or for medical use.
Cannabis in the Netherlands is illegal, but is decriminalised for personal use. Recreational consumption of the drug is tolerated, and it is available in coffeeshops.
Cannabis in Ontario is legal for both medical and recreational purposes. Cannabis in Canada has been legal for medicinal purposes since 2001 under conditions outlined in the Access to Cannabis for Medical Purposes Regulations, issued by Health Canada, while seed, grain, and fibre production are permitted under licence. The federal Cannabis Act, legalizing cannabis for recreational use, came into effect on 17 October 2018.
