Well I am back from the 2008 Cannabis Cup in Amsterdam and man, was it worth the trip. The city of Amsterdam is incredible. The architecture is unlike anything we have here in the U.S., except for maybe at Disney Land. Not only does the city look awesome, it’s nice and small. Between the incredible public transportation system, and walking, you don’t even really need a car. You can literally walk from one side of the city to the other in about 30 minutes.
In addition to all of that, marijuana and hash are "tolerated". And by tolerated I mean it is not legal, but not something that law enforcement really cares about. The Dutch realize that marijuana/hash are not that big a deal and they have better things to do with their time and resources. In total, the whole week I was in Amsterdam I think I saw 4-5 cops. Usually they were at the train station. I can’t remember ever seeing a cop while walking around the city. And trust me, I was constantly smoking a fatty while walking so I would have noticed them.
Greenhouse Combo (click to enlarge) Greenhouse Menu (click to enlarge)
I have been getting a bunch of messages and emails asking for as many details as I can provide in my review. I will do my best to write about everything I remember but please keep in mind the fact that I spent the last week killing brain cells at a record pace.
If you would like to skip all the reading and get right to the pictures, scroll down.
Traveling
My wife did a good job of not using a travel agency and booking everything herself. We ended up flying out of Los Angeles on Friday the 21st around 9:15am PST. We flew United and had a 3 hour layover in Chicago. From Chicago we flew direct to Amsterdam which took about 9 or 10 hours. With the time difference, we landed in Amsterdam on Saturday the 22nd at 9:00am Amsterdam time. Even though I did not sleep a wink on either flight, I hit the ground ready to roll.
Amsterdam Arrival
When we left L.A. is was like 80 degrees and sunny. I traveled in shorts and a long sleeve shirt. Big mistake. As we were landing in Amsterdam I noticed a layer of snow covering everything. Yes I said snow! Turns out the day we arrived is the same day they received the first snow of the year. We walked out of Schiphol Airport to wait for out shuttle to the hotel and man I was freezing. It was like 35 degrees out and windy. The damn shuttle could not arrive fast enough.
Fortunately it was not a long wait and before we new it we were on the shuttle along with a family of 5 from Arkansas who was also in town for the cup, both on our way to our hotels. It was a 10 minute ride to the 1st stop which was a "youth hotel" where the family from Arkansas was staying. They described it to me as not quite a hotel, but not a hostel. Looked decent.
After dropping them off our driver seemed to cheer up a bit and started giving us a little tour of the city. He was obviously fishing for a tip but we didn’t care. The drive from the "youth hotel" to our hotel, The ‘T Hotel took about 15 minutes and we saw a lot of the city.
Upon arriving at our hotel we were informed that because we were so early that our room was not yet ready. Pretty much what we expected. So we decided to bundle up, leave our luggage at the hotel and venture out into the city for a couple of hours.
Walking Around Amsterdam
This was my 1st trip to Amsterdam and besides doing some reading online and watching a few You Tube videos, I had no clue what to expect. We left the hotel and started walking. the city itself is absolutely beautiful. It’s hard to try and explain it to someone that has not been.
The closest comparison I can think of is the North Pole. Lots of cobble stone streets and old buildings with tall roofs and stone chimney’s. Within minutes we were standing in front of a "smart shop". Smart Shops are like head shops that also sell Shrooms. The few that I went into had between 4-8 kinds of shrooms to choose from. The most powerful being some black truffles that looked like burnt popcorn. I snapped a picture of the window as they were not yet open and we walked over the canal to Abraxas, my first Dutch coffee shop.
My First Coffee Shop
Abraxas, the first coffee shop I went to was located a few blocks from my hotel. It’s a small shop located on a busy corner with 4 or 5 tables and a bar. There is also an upstairs area but it was closed as the owner was getting ready for The Cup which started the next day. I had not planned on it being the first shop I went to but what the heck, we’re here.
Cheese – Abraxas Coffee Shop (Click To Enlarge) Abraxas (Click To Enlarge)
We walked in and right away I new there was some dank waiting for me. This place reeked of kind bud. My wife grabbed a seat and I bellied up to the bar and asked to see the menu. I just wanted to get high after the trip so I got a gram of Cheese and proceeded to roll the entire nug up into 1 fatty. I heard the bar tender telling another patron that they needed to smoke outside. I was a little confused so I asked him if I was okay to blaze in the shop. He gave me a weird look and said "of course"! I fired up my fatty and BAM! I was sitting in a public business getting stoned for the first time in my life. It felt great!
No Smoking!
It turns out that in July of this year, a new law was passed in Holland that makes it illegal to smoke cigarettes in a public place, including coffee shops. It is strictly enforced and that is what I had heard the bartender at Abraxas talking about.
Wow, from a non smokers perspective, which I am, this is the greatest law ever. It pretty much meant that when you walked into a coffee shop, the air would be filled with nothing but pot smoke. It was great.
Our Hotel
As I mentioned earlier we went without a travel agent and did everything ourselves. We ended up staying at ‘T Hotel which was a 400+ year old canal house with 7 available rooms. We stayed in room #7 which was on the 3rd floor, canal side of the building. Unfortunately the reviews we read online were true, there was no elevator and the stairs were insanely steep and narrow. If you are either old or fat, don’t even think about staying here.
The hotel ended up being a total score. Not only was it a nice place with a great staff and free breakfast, it was located on the same street as the coffee shop Grey Area, about a 3 minute walk. In addition, our hotel was pretty much centrally located to all the shops participating in the Cannabis Cup. It was total luck but I’ll take it!
The only down side is that since the new no smoking law came into effect, you cannot smoke in your hotel room. Weed or cigarettes. I had to hike down the stairs and go outside every time I wanted to get high. Fortunately we did not really spend much time in the room. The only real time I had to go through this run-around is when I wanted to get high in the morning before the free breakfast our hotel provided. But I got use to it and by the time we left, I actually liked starting the day out with a walk around the canal outside while burning a kind fatty.
The Cannabis Cup
The Cannabis Cup ended up being a lot different than I, and a lot of other 1st time attendees thought it would be. For starters, you are not given very much free weed. Other than Barney’s, there were no coffee shops giving out free samples. You could walk into either Barney’s or The Greenhouse though and just ask for a vaporizer hit and within minutes you were handed a Volcano bag full of either Utopia Haze or Super Lemon Haze depending what shop you were at. Damn, I must of taken at least 50 vape rips during the week. 
Also at The greenhouse they had 3 giant glass bongs that were hooked up to a crazy vape system that I had not seen before. It too was constantly stuffed with Super Lemon Haze that you could just walk up and hit whenever you wanted.
Me Hitting Free Volcano Me Hitting Free Vape
The way it works is you go to a place called The Power Zone which is like a hall for trade shows. There you would show someone your confirmation letter and number, they would look you up in the computer and then give you your pass and a little gift bag. In the gift bag was a t-shirt, a grinder, lighter, papers and a book that listed all the events for the week and the coffee shops that were participating. You also received a laminated map of the city that listed the location of all the coffee shops competing for the cup.
After you register, it is then up to you to make your way through the city during the week and find each coffee shop. Kind of like a bar crawl only spread out all over the city. As it turns out, it can be relatively difficult to find a few of the shops as they are located in some small alleys. But with a little hard work, we got there.
It is really up to the coffee shop to decide what they are going to do for the people that have paid for Cannabis Cup judges passes. Some shops don’t really do anything other than enter a strain of weed/hash while others take it very seriously like The Greenhouse. At The Greenhouse, during the week of the cup, if you are not a judge, you cannot even get in the door. Other places might let you in by only pass holding judges are able to buy their Cup entered strain(s).
The Owner Of Barney’s And His 3 New Cups
As I mentioned earlier, Barney’s was really the only place that gave you the bud/hash they entered for free. When you walked into Barney’s and showed your pass, you were given a "Barney’s Bag" that contained a beanie, a grinder, a lighter, papers, filters, 1 gram of Royal Jelly Hash, 1 gram of triple zero hash and 1 gram of Utopia Haze.
A few shops had a package deal where if you bought both there weed and hash entries you got a discount.
But for the most part, if you wanted to test a coffee shops smoke, you had to buy it. It was not that bad though, weed is only $10-15 U.S. per gram and hash anywhere from $10-80 U.S. 5 gram max. on both.
There were a few organized parties/events. I went to the opening ceremonies where I hit a 20 foot tall Volcano filled with Super Lemon Haze. Also one night we went to a live show. Bob Marley’s son Kymani Marley performed to a packed, and incredibly smokey house.
(Click Pics To Enlarge)
Other than that I spent the majority of my time chilling in the coffee shops with new friends that my wife and I met from all over the world. The Cannabis Cup is a great place to meet people of all sorts. It’s a bit tough to take pictures inside the coffee shops. It’s not that the shops mind, it’s that most of the customers do not want to be photographed in a coffee shop in Amsterdam in fear of it winding up on the Internet. So that is why I have so few pictures of the inside of the shops. Plus I was SO DAMN BAKED that many times I just forgot to take pictures.
I took a ton bud/hash pictures and as detailed notes as I could. The trip went by so fast, and I was so damn baked the entire time that it was hard at times to get accurate info. so if anyone reading this also attended this years Cup, feel free to comment and let me know what you think. Otherwise take a look at these pics:
Overall I’d say the trip was outstanding. Obviously having to spend so many hours in the air sucks but it’s well worth it. I cannot imagine ever missing another Cannabis Cup. Knowing how fun and how incredible the bud is, I’d go insane knowing it was going on without me!
I am going to say that without a doubt, I give the 2008 Cannabis Cup an A+ for sure!
For those of you that are interested, here are the results for the 2008 Cannabis Cup.
| FIRST PLACE | SECOND PLACE | THIRD PLACE | |
| Cannabis Cup | Greenhouse – Super Lemon Haze | Barney’s – Utopia Haze | Green Place – Chocolope |
| Indica Cup | Kiwi Seeds – Mt. Cook | Homegrown Fantasy – Cheese | Amnesia – LSD |
| Sativa Cup | Barney’s – Utopia Haze | Paradise – De La Haze | Resin – Integrity |
| Import Hash Cup | Barney’s – Triple Zero | Greenhouse – Super Polm | Amnesia – Shiraz |
| Dutch Hash Cup | Barney’s – Royal Jelly | Greenhouse – Greenhouse Ice | Grey Area – Grey Crystal |
| Product Cup | Barney’s – Be Chilling / DNA – The Party Spray | Bubble Bag – Bubble Bags | Herborizer – Glass Vaporizer |
| Best Booth | Barney’s | — | — |
| Glass Cup | DNA – AK | RooR – Mr. Nice Custom | Green Devil – Moe |
In the coming days/weeks I will be posting reviews on buds, hash, coffee shops, products and anything else I can think of that you might be interested in reading about. If you have any specific questions, feel free to use the contact form or just leave a comment.
–Chubbs
Oh man, awesome little run down of what happen.
Sounds like you had an amazing time.
Hopefully one day I will be able to attend one.
I’m looking forward to all the reviews.
Curious though, if you remember, what weed did you enjoy the most?
Wow that’s a tough one. I’d have to say there were 3 or 4 favorites. L.A. Confidential from De Tweede Kamer, Super Lemon Haze from The Greenhouse, Bubblegum Haze from Mellow Yellow, Sweet Tooth from Barney’s.
They all sound amazing, I’m sure it was a hard choice.
Do you think Super Lemon Haze deserved the win?
Yeah. It really is some amazing herb.
So did Greenhouse breed this strain?
Can it be found in the states?
i remember that sweet sweet taste i havn’t been able to forget it, super lemon haze, the taste of magic….
Two-One: Yes, Greenhouse crossed Lemon Skunk and Super Silver Haze to produce Super Lemon Haze.
Loco: I know what you mean. Free Volcano tokes of SLH were AWESOME!!
Amazing. This right here has inspired me to save up for next years cup!
Teeler: You definitely won’t regret it.
WHERES A GOOD PLACE 2 GET SHROOMS CHUBBZ ???
XX-XPLOSIVE: That can be tricky. I was there literally days before the ban went into effect and they were everywhere. As easy to find as weed.
I left before the ban and have not been back yet. Am not sure if the ban has totally wiped out all teh smart shops or not?
I can’t imagine they are all gone but you never know.
Hey, i’m planning on going this year to the Cannabis cup with a small group of friends. To be honest, i’ve been wanting to go for years, but this year it seems to be more ‘possible’ than ever
I was just wondering, cuz this is my only problem. How much $$$ do you guys recomend to bring over there during the 5 days of the cup. Just to be able to try a little of most or hopefully all the buds that will be entered this year. I know that it’ll allways depend on how much we wanna smoke. But if you could give me a hint, I would apreciate it.
Many thanx from Puerto Rico!
WOWW This is good for me. Thank ^_^