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By ANTHONY DEUTSCH, Associated Press Writer

HAARLEM, Netherlands (AP) - The water pipe stood eight feet tall, encircled by people puffing on its 64 mouthpieces. Elsewhere in the room, a new machine rolled out 300 marijuana joints in minutes. Free hashish was passed around.

It was the start of the Hash and Weed Festival, which runs through Sunday. The aging pioneers of the Dutch marijuana culture, watched by hundreds of young aficionados, gathered in a gymnasium to mark the 30th anniversary of the first "coffee shop" that openly sold reefers like cups of coffee.

"This celebration honors the world's most successful marijuana experiment: the Dutch coffee shop system," said Pete Brady, a writer for Cannabis Culture Magazine.

The seeds of Dutch drug tolerance were planted in 1969 when two entrepreneurs with a taste for marijuana began selling cannabis plants from a houseboat, calling themselves the Lowlands Weed company.

In 1972, Wernard Bruining opened "Mellow Yellow" — then called a "tea house" — on the Amstel River in Amsterdam, the Dutch capital that is now a Mecca for marijuana smokers.

This weekend's festival is a tribute to three decades of progressive drug policies in the Netherlands and to the people, like Bruining, who founded its cafe culture.

Another of the pioneers at Friday's celebration was "Old Ed" Holloway, now 86, a cannabis cultivator who came to the Netherlands in the 1970s from California. Holloway taught Dutch marijuana growers how to use genetic plant breeding techniques that increased the potency and yield of their crops.

Representing marijuana's big business establishment was Henk de Vries, who in 1975 opened the first smoke parlor called a "coffee shop" in a former brothel in Amsterdam's famed Red Light district.

De Vries owns the Bulldog chain of "coffee shops," now a multinational business with its own clothing line. Last year, he said, he had about 7 million customers.

Nol van Schaik, founder of the Global Hemp Museum and owner of the Willie Wortel coffee shop chain, says the marijuana industry has grown so large that "we have become a fully fledged branch of Dutch business."

Holland now has more than 800 "coffee shops," found in 105 of the country's 500 cities and towns.

"We have lasted 30 years despite criticism from around the world, particularly the United States, Sweden and France," said van Schaik, author of "The Dutch Experience," a book on the marijuana movement, released in conjunction with the 30th anniversary.

The Dutch government passed groundbreaking legislation in 1976 that distinguished cannabis-based soft drugs from "hard drugs" such as heroine or cocaine. Cannabis was still officially illegal, but the possession of about 1 ounce was no longer to be prosecuted as a criminal offense.

The liberal Dutch approach laid the foundation for a $3 billion economy, attracting millions of visitors each year and generating substantial tax income for the Dutch government.

-- Anonymous, December 01, 2002