News items
Growshop punishable
On 04, Feb 2015 | In Current affairs, Legal advice, Criminal cases | By - K. Canatan
As of 1 March 2015, an amendment to the Opium Act will enter into force, making it punishable in principle to operate a growshop. There will be a new provision (art. 11a) that makes facilitating illegal hemp cultivation punishable. Below is the text of the new article of the law:
Art. 11a Opium Law
Any person who prepares, works, processes, or sells fabrics or objects
offers, sells, delivers, provides, transports, manufactures or provides for
has means of transport, premises, funds or other means of transport.
has means of payment or data available,
which he knows or has serious reason to suspect is intended for
to commit one of the offences referred to in paragraphs 3 and 5 of Article 11,
Criminal offences shall be punishable by imprisonment for a term of imprisonment of up to
a maximum of three years or a fifth category fine.
In plain Dutch, for growshops this means - in short - that offering or selling objects intended for professional or commercial hemp cultivation is no longer permitted. Even if it is not a matter of making professional cultivation possible, but the cultivation of 500 grams of hemp, 200 hemp plants or 500 units of soft drugs, this falls under the new penal provision. The law also makes it possible to remand suspects in custody on suspicion of violating this article of the law, so this also applies to grow-hope owners and their staff.
Do all growshops have to close now? That seems to be the case, although it's not punishable when it comes to facilitating home growing. It is true that the Public Prosecutor's Office will have to prove that it concerns the facilitation of professional cultivation, but the consequences can already be very drastic for growshops. After all, this will only become apparent after (often lengthy) criminal proceedings, whereas searches, seizures and arrests may have taken place prior to that. By the time a growshop or its owner has been acquitted, the damage is often already irreparable. Incidentally, the criminalisation is not only intended for growshops.
If you are a grow-hope owner and are concerned about the consequences of the new legislation, please feel free to contact our office for advice (020-6383606). With a good plan of action you can prevent possible criminal intervention.
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