Koos Zwart Award

Koos Zwart (Amsterdam 1947โ€“2014) was a Dutch cannabis activist.

He advocated for the Dutch tolerance policy, which would be shaped in part by his mother, who was Minister of Health. In the 1970s and 1980s, Zwart would read the ‘market reports’ every Saturday on national radio in a show called In de Rooie Haan, which provided indicative prices for hashish and weed on the Dutch market.

In November 1976, Zwart was arrested at a traffic checkpoint.. In his car was a briefcase with drug samples that he used for youth education by the Drug Information Foundation. On April 15, 1977, the minister’s son was fined a total of 125 guilders for possession.

Koos Zwart was involved with the Union of Cannabis Retailers (BCD) and was an advisor to the Platform Cannabis Enterprises Netherlands (PCN), lobbying for coffeeshop owners who had been arrested.

in 2014, the Koos Zwart Award was inaugurated to recognize activists who have made an outstanding contribution to the normalization and legalization of cannabis.