Mellow Yellow coffeeshop Mellow Yellow was unsuccessfully raided by police several times. Unpackaged cannabis, bought from wholesalers including drug lord Klaas Bruinsma, was hidden behind secret doors and shutters. In 1975, the concept was adopted by a shop named Russia situated on the same street as Mellow Yellow and was followed by another coffee shop called The Bulldog. Now there are 223 such coffee shops in Amsterdam. Bruining also runs Stichting Mediwiet (Medi Cannabis Foundation), a group that supports the legalization of growing marijuana for medicinal uses. The shop was closed at the strike of the New Year in 2017, due to new
Legal history of cannabis in the United States for violating federal law. To combat state-approved medical cannabis legislation, the Drug Enforcement Administration continued the routine targeting and arrests of medical cannabis patients and the seizure of medical cannabis and the business assets of growers and medical dispensaries. This was finally curtailed with the passage of the Rohrabacher–Farr amendment in 2014, although prosecutions initially continued until a pair of court rulings determined the DOJ was interpreting the amendment incorrectly. In January 2018, Attorney General Jeff Sessions rescinded the Cole Memorandum, an Obama-era policy that generally discouraged U.S. Attorneys from enforcing federal law against state-legal cannabis enterprises. The impact that