Cannabis (NL)
Season 1
What a small country can be great at - or can it? Dutch-grown cannabis was a Dutch export product like cheese and Cruyff. But how can our policy of tolerance be consonant with the incarceration of cannabis king Johan van Laarhoven in 'the hell of Bangkok' - thanks to our own Public Prosecutor? Cannabis looks at the history of the Dutch soft drugs policy since the 1970s. Against the backdrop of a 50-year policy of tolerance, it tells the story of the rise and fall of cannabis king Johan van Laarhoven (convicted in Thailand to 103 years in prison). While Van Laarhoven is languishing in his cell, the film reveals that not Thailand but the Netherlands was behind his arrest. The seeds for the hunt for Van Laarhoven were already sown in the late 1970s. This debunks the myth of the Netherlands as an exemplary constitutional state.
