While numerous cannabis shops opened in Brussels around 2018, the high of enthusiasm for the leafy drug has died down now: many customers are getting their products from abroad at half the price.
After a Royal Decree legalised "light cannabis" in Belgium in September 2017, shops selling products made from cannabidiol (abbreviated to CBD) started popping up like mushrooms all over Brussels. As these products do not have the psychoactive substance THC, people who consume them do not get high.
Since then, some 20 shops have opened in Brussels – selling dried cannabis leaves and a wide range of accessories and products containing cannabis, such as ointments, tea and oil.
However, a ban on displaying smoking products has been in place as of this year – which shop owners are feeling the effects of. The number of CBD shops in Belgium has fallen by 28% since 2021: from 74 to 53. In Brussels, the number has fallen from 21 to 17, Bruzz reports.
Ordering on Amazon
"Since the ban this year, our turnover has fallen by 20% compared to the previous year," the owner of Cannahouse, with three branches in Brussels, told the outlet.
"I am also no longer allowed to sell vaporisers online, even though you can still order them on Amazon," he said, adding that he is also seeing fewer customers now that the hype has died down after the peak in 2018.
Still, cannabis use has significantly increased in recent years, according to the Belgian health institute Sciensano: there were around 3% active users in the period 2001-2013, compared to 5.3% in 2024.
A man smokes cannabis at a shop in Amsterdam. Credit: Belga
Additionally, the Federal Government in June 2019 decided that CBD smoking products would be subject to tobacco legislation from then on. In practice, this means a tax of 21% as well as special excise duties must be paid on these products.
For the shops, this is unsustainable – especially because the same products are also sold abroad, sometimes at half the price, particularly in France. These shops can then easily ship their products to Belgian consumers.
For shop owners, the solutions are clear: either the government lowers the taxes and excise duties on legal cannabis products to a "market-based" rate of between 25% and 30%, or stricter controls are needed on foreign websites that supply cannabis in Belgium without paying excise duties.
