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 and was passed in 1860 following a string of suicides allegedly involving the substances later categorized as poisons. The first draft of the bill 'An act to regulate the sale of poisons' prohibited the sale of cannabis—as with the other substances—without the written order of a physician. The final bill as passed allowed the sale without a prescription so long as the purpose to which it was issued and name and address of the buyer was recorded, and in addition, all packaging of such substances—whether sold with a prescription or not—had to have the label "poison" on them in uppercase