DAS HEMP-KAPITAL

A Look at the Seminal Figures Behind Amsterdam's Thriving Marijuana
Businesses

I'd like to start by thanking my Higher Ground co-host, friend and
colleague Larry Gabriel for his fine column on hemp farming last week.
As it happens, I'm staying this week at a splendid guest apartment
above the Hash Marihuana and Hemp Museum in Amsterdam's Green Row on
the Achterburgwal Canal as the guest of Sensi Seeds and its
progenitor, Ben Dronkers, who's also responsible for establishing the
booming hemp industry in the Netherlands.

Ben's a very sweet cat and what they used to call a "mild and
unassuming" character - someone who probably wouldn't want to hear me
sing his praises too loudly - but he was a leader in the Rotterdam
branch of the original movement that succeeded in eliminating
criminalization as a public approach to marijuana use in Holland in
the early 1970s.

Ben Dronkers established the Sensi Coffeeshop in Rotterdam as one of
the first public cannabis outlets, then starting in 1985 built Sensi
Seeds as a major developer and distributor of top-grade marijuana
seeds for the burgeoning growing industry in Holland. He opened Sensi
Seed Bank in Amsterdam and founded the Hash Marihuana and Hemp Museum
next door as a means of educating the public about the wonders of hemp
and its products, both smokable and industrial.

In 1993, Ben began his intensive venture into hemp production and
product development with a company called HempFlex. He developed and
manufactured specialized hemp harvesting machinery and started growing
hemp in a big way - now covering about 6,000 acres - to supply hemp
fiber to major manufacturers such as BMW, market hemp products like
HempFlax animal bedding, and harness oils and other agricultural products.

Dronkers started the industrial hemp revolution in the Netherlands,
and geared his entire operation from growing to distribution toward
maximum ecological and social benefit. At the same time, he's
continued to grow the Sensi Seed Bank as one of the primary sources of
first-quality seeds for growers all over the world.

I met Ben on my first visit to Amsterdam when I was honored as the
High Priest of the Cannabis Cup in 1998. In fact, I smoked my first
joint in a coffeeshop at the Sensi outlet in Rotterdam on my initial
visit to Holland earlier that year, and in the early 2000s spent a lot
of time hanging out with all the characters at the late, lamented
Sensi Museum Coffeeshop on the Damstraat.

The more I learned about Ben Dronkers, the more I liked him. He
created important pioneering businesses based on his principles and
his love for cannabis, helped open up a vast new industry for cannabis
entrepreneurs, and made a lot of money himself. At the same time, he
paid close attention to the civic component and devoted considerable
resources to furthering the cause of cultivation, hemp production and
the mental health of the marijuana smoking population through the
establishment of the Hash Marihuana and Hemp Museum.

The museum has grown into a significant institution and has recently
taken on the support and administration of the Cannabis College, a
storefront academy next door to the museum that boasts Holland's only
legal cannabis growing operation in its basement.

The Sensi empire is well-integrated and arrayed along the
Achterburgwal, ranging from the Sensi Seed Shop (formerly the Museum
Coffeeshop) at the Damstraat corner and, going up the canal, the Sensi
Seed Bank, the museum, and the Cannabis College. Across the canal,
they're also currently ensconced in the Flying Dutchman building,
following the retirement of its former owner, himself the major patron
of the Cannabis College for most of its existence.

These are my kind of people. Like so many Dutch citizens, they didn't
change with the times when the '70s rolled over into the dreaded
Reagan era and the rising right-wing culture. They remained engaged
with the social process and made serious changes in their social order.

And, in terms of our central concern with this column, they
established the individual's right to smoke marijuana, in sickness and
in health, in one's home or at the coffeeshop of one's choosing, and
the ancillary right to purchase, over the counter, enough marijuana or
hashish to get high on and stay high on as long as one may like.

For 80 percent of the Dutch population, this means nothing, but for
the 20 percent here who are smokers, it's the next thing to living in
a world of one's own design. Not only does this system take perfect
care of the toker, but it provides work opportunities in the cannabis
industry for thousands of adults of all ages, from growers and
harvesters and distributors to coffeeshop employees, trimmers,
tenders, professional joint rollers and bicycle stash delivery persons.

And that's before you get to the hemp industry pioneered by Ben
Dronkers and his people. It's big business now, generating employment
and income and tax revenues on a large scale by producing hemp fibers
for industry and hemp products for the marketplace. Yet it retains a
strong sense of social responsibility and dedicates significant
proceeds to educational and public information activities - like
placing ads for the Hemp Museum and its teachings on the electronic
informational devices adorning the public transportation.

Over the years, I've spent quite a bit of time with Ben Dronkers and
his sons Alan and Ravi, and now I'm a guest in the apartment above the
museum they keep for visiting dignitaries. Through Ravi I met my
current partners in crime, Sidney Daniels and Joeri Pfeiffer, who
sponsor and maintain my websites, created and registered with the
state the John Sinclair Foundation to support my projects, developed a
brand of John Sinclair seeds to create revenue for the foundation, and
underwrite and support my Radio Free Amsterdam Internet radio project,
which is also manifested in the Motor City by means of Detroit Life
Radio (detroitlife313.com).

Sidney went to work with his friend Ravi Dronkers in the Sensi Seeds
operation in 1996, and teamed up with Joeri after opening up a stand
called the Hempshopper to vend hemp products in the Nieuwmarkt. Over
the years, they opened two Hempshoppers in the Centruum and developed
a close relationship with a hemp products manufacturer and distributor
in Germany as a major customer. Recently, they assumed ownership of
his company, Hemperium, and are developing a line of hemp consumer
products from lollipops and essential oils to clothing items.

Not only do I benefit from their enterprise and social commitment, but
it's rewarding to see a new generation of citizens in their 20s and
30s take the up old-school principles that have guided me for so long
and made Holland such a distinctive place in the 21st century.

In light of Mayor Dave Bing's recent call for new ideas to revitalize
business and employment in the D, it would make perfect sense for the
city of Detroit to take the next step forward and commit to the
municipal growing of hemp as a potentially massive income source for
the city, using its vast acreage of vacant land, abandoned factories,
schools and police stations to grow marijuana for distribution and
sale to the medical marijuana community of patients, caregivers and -
potentially - dispensaries.

I'll take up this topic later, but Larry Gabriel really rang my bell
when he quoted former state Rep. LaMar Lemmons Jr. saying, "Hemp
farming can create thousands of jobs ... [and] with the large amount
of vacant land in Detroit, we could do some of the agriculture right
here." Amen, brother, amen.