Why are coffeeshops in Amsterdam called coffeeshops while their main product is cannabis?
“Coffeeshops” originated in the early 1970s, when the current policy of “toleration” (allowing small-scale trade and consumption of cannabis while keeping the legal bans intact) wasn’t there yet. That’s why the Amsterdam coffee shops could not openly say that they were selling hash and weed. “Coffee shop” was their cover name, all people “in the know” knew what was meant by that, and when selling cannabis was officially decriminalized, the name had stuck and wasn’t changed anymore.
