Mellow Yellow coffeeshop Mellow Yellow coffeeshop Mellow Yellow was the oldest cannabis coffee shop in Amsterdam, prior to its closure at the start of 2017. The coffee shop was founded in 1972 by Wernard Bruinin in Weesperzijde, Amsterdam, on the premises of a former bakery. The shop is named after "Mellow Yellow", a song by Donovan which describes the singer trying to become intoxicated through smoking the peel of banana. The intent of the shop is to sell cannabis, despite this being illegal at the time of its creation. Sales were originally disguised by drug dealers seated at the bar posing as customers.
Legal history of cannabis in the United States a halt, and a number of existing laws were either repealed or allowed to expire. In 1972, the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws petitioned the BNDD (which later became the DEA) to remove cannabis from the list of Schedule I drugs, in order to allow it to be prescribed by physicians. After a decade of legal battles in which the DEA refused to consider the petition, public hearings were finally held on the matter starting in 1986. In September 1988, after two years of extensive public hearings, DEA Chief Administrative Law Judge Francis L. Young ruled in