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Medical cannabis is legal in Netherlands and adult-use is pilot. Below: a free market overview, with the full sizing, regulation and trade data available from PP.
Medical cannabis sales and registered patients in Netherlands, 2025 actuals and the 2027 forecast. Forecasts to 2030 are in the Netherlands data pack.
Medical sales, EUR
| Metric | 2025 | 2026 | 2027 | 2028 | 2029 | 2030 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Medical sales | €3.5m | €3.4m | €3.4m | |||
| Patients | 6,199 | 6,080 | 5,972 |
Forecasts to 2030 — sales, patients and the full Netherlands series — are in the Netherlands data pack, or scoped to your question in a bespoke brief.
See the data pack Request a briefSource: Prohibition Partners — Global Medical Cannabis Market Review (2026, updated April 2026) & The European Cannabis Report (2025)
How Netherlands’s framework got here, and what moves next.
Europe's first medical system
The Netherlands establishes Europe's first medical cannabis system and becomes the main global exporter of unlicensed medical cannabis for many years.
Wietexperiment test phases begin
Test phases of the adult-use supply experiment start, building legal domestic supply chains for coffeeshops.
Main experiment goes live
From 7 April 2025 all coffeeshops in the ten participating municipalities source exclusively from the ten licensed suppliers.
Political risk to the experiment
The current government is less supportive; stakeholders fear calls for early termination despite legal barriers.
From International Cannabis Weekly, our free global briefing.
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GlobeNewswire · №456 · 3 Jul 2026 · Adult-use
The Netherlands was the first country in Europe to establish a medical cannabis system for patient treatment, as well as domestic production. For many years, the country was the main exporter of unlicensed medical cannabis globally. Netherlands estimated medical market size for 2025 is over €3 million.
The country has not scaled up its medical cannabis market, nor domestic production, for years. It is now a small market relative to some of its European neighbours, however it remains one of the top European exporters.
The sole producer of medical cannabis in the country, Bedrocan, supplies all of its production at a fixed price to the Dutch government, which supplies it in turn to domestic and international medical cannabis markets.
Any doctor in the country can prescribe medical cannabis for any condition where there is evidence of efficacy. Reimbursement is only available in some cases, and only through private health insurance.
