My guess is that legalization is badly implemented in NL. Isn't it more like a "look the other way" policy, so that businesses in the industry still have to operate underground? If you make a business illegal, then only criminals will do it. In the US, marijuana has become extremely boring very quickly. The industry is now dominated by artisinal bud brands, IoT vape pods, and CBD smoothies, not gangs. Perhaps NL needs to legalize all the way.

Growing marujuana, as a business, is fundamentally almost exactly the same as growing any crop.

It is indeed a large portion of good old fashioned planting-head-in-sand, and try to ignore expert opinion for as long as you can. However, assassinations are getting more brazen every year, entanglements with local government officials too, so the problem is getting harder and harder to accept. The NRC article with insights from the Italian anti-Mafia force gives a very chilling insight.

The problem isn't marijuana, the problem is the types that are sourcing it here for export, and the enormous scale of domestic synthetics production (of which also most is exported). You can't have expect to have normal friendly businessmen trade in drugs which are forbidden in the rest of the world.

You are 100% right. Even though you can buy it legally, the shops still have to source it from illegal grow operations. This still makes the whole industry look bad.

Shops have to be super secret mysterious and shady about how they actually source their weed. Once you start asking about crops or where it's from, they become incredibly evasive -- I don't blame them, but it's just silly, this is a thing I can buy legally and I'm "not supposed to" ask where it's from?

It doesn't just look bad, it is bad. Optimizing illegal supply lines attracts people who have experience with that: drug syndicates.

Please forgive the nuisance but would you mind noting -- how can we check what you mean by "reputable"? The reasons I'm asking: current media climate; long history of white-supremacist thinking in that area of this space-rock; etc

[edited to add:]

Also, as mentioned elsewhere in this thread -- the Dutch government has been taking a certain kinda turn.

I'm also asking as someone whose family has been affected by the opiate epidemic in the US. I'm someone who's concerned about drug policy, first domestically but also globally. I want harm reduction. I'm in the middle of a career change and may be focusing on this going forward (if I can find out how).

So I promise you, I'm not trying to beg-the-question, I'm legitimately curious about your comment and just trying to deal with the language barrier.

You can check reporting of the Social Planbureau, Politie, of which some gets through to rijksoverheid.nl. Then there the usual suspects of publications that still maintain dedicated investigative journalists such as De Groene Amsterdammer and FTM. NRC and Volkskrant on occasion. De Telegraaf is an unusual exception to the pattern because their journalism is afwul, except their crime reporting (it sells so they pay for it).

You can also checkout where journalistic prizes go.

Keywords are ondermijnende of ontwrichtende criminaliteit.

MUCH appreciated!

> You can also checkout where journalistic prizes go.

I had never thought of this. It seems like a great technique for international/interlingual research, in general. Thanks for suggesting it!

Well, IIRC production is illegal, so there you go, it has to be done by criminals by definition. Legalization has been done stupidly: they created a legal market that needs to be fed by a criminal one. Not sure what they thought they were doing.

Reminds me of the padded wall torture chambers inside shipping containers that surfaced in the port of Rotterdam.

Jesus I had to google for that. What the hell were they doing anyway?

Gangs are completely out of control in Western Europe

The AD is really no better than a Dutch version of Daily Mail isn't it?

I know you just linked them for examples, but holy crap that paper is a damn piece of trash.

Using a racial slur in the title ("mocro mafia") is not okay just because you're talking about criminals. Nor is it okay to constantly refer to their nationalities in such a broad sense, it says several times "the Moroccans" are doing this or that. They KNOW perfectly well how their target audience is going to read that, they're not going to think about actual organised crime, but just eye their Moroccan-born neighbour more suspiciously.