THE IMPACT OF THE DUTCH WAR ON CANNABIS CULTIVATION

Source: Bloomberg

Date: October 2 2007

Author: Joana Quintanilha

The price of Dutch marijuana has increased 20 percent this year because
the supply is being curbed by a rise in police raids on hemp plantations.

On the other hand, the potency of one gram of Dutch-grown marijuana has
decreased by 1.5 percent, according to an e-mailed statement from the
Trimbos Institute, a Dutch group that studies drug addiction and
treatments. The level of THC, the compound that gives cannabis its
potency, fell to 16 percent from 17.5 percent last year.

It is the first time that the price of Dutch marijuana has risen since
the institute started keeping a record of hemp prices in 1999. One gram
of marijuana, grown in the Netherlands, costs 7.30 euros ($10.30) currently.

A decrease in supply of Dutch hemp and higher prices could be causing
some marijuana producers to mix the cannabis with compounds such as sand
and glass pearls, the statement said. The Institute didn’t find evidence
that hemp sold in Dutch coffee shops has been mixed with other compounds.

Imported cannabis was 5.4 percent weaker than a year ago, according to
the statement. The price of imported marijuana also increased this year,
by about 40 cents per gram.

Earlier this year, police in Rotterdam said they’d shut down 600 indoor
marijuana farms since 2005. There are about 6,000 active producers in
the city.

Dutch officials have stepped up raids on an estimated 40,000 indoor hemp
plantations, which cause two fires a month in Rotterdam by tapping into
power lines for lights that feed their crops. The crackdown is making it
harder to supply marijuana shops with the Super Skunk and Purple Haze
their customers crave in a country that decriminalized use of the drug
in 1976.

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