While society is falling apart at the seams as people fight to the death over toilet and pasta, over in the Netherlands, people have got their priorities straight; they’re heading straight for the coffee shops.
Last week, the Dutch government ordered the shut down of bars and restaurants until April 6 – including weed coffee shops. The news dropped at 5pm on Sunday, resulting in a mild bout of panic shopping which saw huge lines outside of the stores. People had less than an hour to top up their supply that would have to last weeks, and sensing a business opportunity, illegal sellers started working the queues handing out their contact details with promises of weed delivery, but at almost triple the price of legal avenues.
While the law around weed is a bit hazy in the Netherlands, the long and short of it is that you can buy it from a coffee shop without facing any repercussions, but flogging (and buying) it on from people and places not approved to sell it is a big no-no.
In a surprisingly sensible move, the government had an emergency meeting the next day and decided that forcing closing coffee shops is a bloody stupid idea because it would open up an illegal market and see an uptick in street crime. So it decreed that they could open again. Huzzah! Customers can pop in to grab takeaway weed, in a similar fashion to how restaurants around the world are dealing with restrictions while staying open. So all’s well that ends well, and they can smoke their way through the pandemic. [Traveller]
This post originally appeared on Gizmodo UK, which is gobbling up the news in a different timezone.