Cannabis has many different applications, from making medicines to making rope and medicinal cannabis bottles. The Hash Marihuana & Hemp Museum, located in the popular Amsterdam Red Light District, was founded in 1985 and is the oldest museum in the world that educates people on cannabis. Amsterdam is known for its coffee shops and the recreational purposes of smoking cannabis (also known as hemp or marijuana). It is one of the reasons why thousands of tourists have been coming to the city for years and will continue to do so. Whether you’re visiting Amsterdam to smoke or not, you will definitely learn a lot from the Hash Marihuana & Hemp Museum because it focuses on the many applications of the plant.
Discover here everything about the plant, its history and the culture that surrounds it: the museum has more than 12,000 objects related to the marijuana on display. View real plants, take a weed sample at the Vaporizer Booth and learn all about the industrial applications of the hemp plant.
A journey through the history of cannabis
Go on a journey through the fascinating world of the cannabis plant at the Hash Marihuana & Hemp Museum. Since the cannabis museum is located in the oldest part of the city, you can expect the complete experience of a unique museum visit that you won’t forget easily. Spread over two canal houses you will find an extensive collection of botanical prints, pipes, anti-reefer propaganda, paintings by smokers, vintage medicine bottles, hemp paper, and textiles. The history of cannabis indeed goes much further than the world-famous coffee shops.
The many uses of cannabis
Modern medical research shows how cannabis could help millions of patients. However, already in 1880 cannabis was an everyday medicine in the Western world. The use of pain relief in traditional Chinese medicine goes back even thousands of years. And there is more.
After wood, hemp was the most used material in 17th-century shipbuilding. Hemp fibre is now used by BMW and Mercedes in the manufacture of ultra-light and strong door panels. Hemp seeds are a hip superfood. The versatile cannabis plant offers a sustainable alternative to many raw materials.
What you can expect from a visit
The museum is divided into two. One part is dedicated to showing the industrial use of hemp throughout history and even in our modern times. The industrial use shows how hemp was used in making ropes for seamen, paper and even linen. The other part of the museum, which is only a 2-minute walk, shows how hemp and marijuana were introduced into Europe by Napoleon’s armies after the taking of Egypt. It also teaches visitors about the medicinal uses of marijuana and hemp and how both can be sustainably cultivated without pesticides.
Pay attention to the 17th-century paintings of Dutch smokehouses, painted by Rembrandt’s contemporaries, before continuing on to the cannabis garden with real cannabis plants. View original designs of hemp textiles from the large fashion houses Louis Vuitton and Ralph Lauren. Finally, do not forget to visit the Vaporizer Booth: in the afternoon and evening, you can try a vaporizer here.
A free audio tour is available and a unique temporary exhibition can be seen regularly.
