Hash Marijuana Hef Museum

About

In Amsterdam's De Wallen district, known as the Red Light District, the Hash, Marihuana & Hemp Museum occupies a narrow canal-house building at Oudezijds Achterburgwal 148. Since Ben Dronkers opened it in 1985, more than two million visitors have passed through its doors. Inside, a live cannabis garden shows the plant at various stages of growth, alongside a collection of smoking pipes and roach clips, an 1836 Dutch Bible made from hemp, and David Teniers the Younger's 1660 painting Hemp-Smoking Peasants in a Smoke House — objects that trace cannabis's uses across eras and continents. Following the plant's path through medicine, ritual, and culture, one comes to understand why this small museum, which opened a second location in Barcelona in 2012, considers itself an archive of cannabis history.