‘The Dutch experience’ by: Nol van Schaik

When the 30th Anniversary of the Dutch coffeeshops was nearing, Nol decided to write a book about that notorious history of the cannabis scene in the Netherlands.

He started collecting all the material he needed, with great help of Wernard Bruining, the man that started the first ever coffeeshop in the world, the Mellow Yellow in Amsterdam.

The book describes how the pioneers of marihuana, some of them without realising it then, made cannabis and coffeeshops a socially accepted phenomenon in the Netherlands.If you want to know all about how the coffeeshop system in Holland came to be, you should read Nol’s book, it will clear all the confusion around cannabis and their outlets.

Bookreview: The Dutch Experience, by Dope Britannia’s Webmaster.

Nol van Schaik is probably Holland’s best known exponent of coffeeshop culture and is certainly one of the most influential cannabistas in Europe. Having been a part of the cannabis scene for two decades in Holland where he owns several coffeeshops, Nol co-founded the UK’s first overt coffeeshop in 2001 (the Dutch Experience in Stockport) and has even found time to train cannabis café entrepreneurs for the UK. Now he’s turned his lifetime of experience and knowledge loose in a book, The Dutch Experience, in which he chronicles 30 years of hash and grass coffeeshops from their birth in Holland through to their migration to the UK.This wonderfully informative book provides basic cannabis information together with suprising facts – such as that the Bulldog coffeeshop chain are the 3rd largest seller of Heineken in Holland! Reviewing 30 years of history, Nol takes the reader on a tour from Holland’s first coffeeshop, Mellow Yellow, through to the modern medical marijuana movement, even taking in the invention of home grow as we know it and then giving you the inside track on the UK’s first coffeeshop, also called the Dutch Experience (Nol seems to like that name!).In essence, The Dutch Experience is one part history, one part business textbook and one part manifesto. If you’ve ever smoked a fat joint and wondered what it would be like to run your own coffeeshop, then this book is for you. There are some very Dutch uses of English that can be a bit jarring but you shouldn’t let this put you off in the slightest and after a while you find that this accented narration adds to the character of the book. This is an insightful look at the cannabis café trade from someone who is steeped in the business and if you are at all interested in Europe’s contemporary cannabis culture, past, present and future, then you should read it immediately.