Been there. Smoked that. Here's what I learned.

The Social Club Model Changed How I Think About This

Spain's private cannabis clubs are unlike anything else. You're not buying from a shop — you're joining a community. Barcelona has hundreds of them. The experience is deeply social, almost old-school in a good way. Someone always knows someone.

Madrid is more underground, harder to find the right door. Barcelona is where I spent most of my time — the Born district, late nights, unforgettable conversations with people from everywhere.

The OG — Still Delivers, If You Know Where to Go

Amsterdam gets dismissed as a tourist trap by people who've only done the obvious spots. They're right about those spots. But the city has layers. The coffeeshops in Jordaan and De Pijp that aren't on every tourist map are a completely different experience.

The Dutch tolerance model is decades old and still works. The quality is consistently good. What I didn't expect: how calm the whole thing is. Zero drama, complete normalcy.

Germany's Legal Experiment — Watched It From the Inside

I was in Berlin when Germany legalised. The energy was something else — Görlitzer Park, Tempelhof, the Kreuzberg scene. People who had been doing this underground for twenty years suddenly doing it openly in public parks.

The CSC model is unique globally. Not a shop, not a grey market — an actual community structure. Still evolving. Berlin is the best place in Europe right now to see what happens when a major country takes a genuinely different approach.

Where Cannabis Is Already Completely Mainstream

LA hit me with the scale of it. Dispensaries everywhere, delivery apps, cannabis brunches, events, pop-ups — it's completely woven into the city's culture in a way that nowhere else quite is yet. Silver Lake, Culver City, Venice Beach all have their own vibe.

The quality ceiling is very high. The market is competitive and you feel it. The best dispensaries in LA are genuinely impressive operations. The worst are generic. You need to know which is which.

Messy, Chaotic, Completely New York About It

New York's cannabis rollout has been a disaster administratively and still somehow works on the street level. The licensed dispensaries that are open are good. The grey market storefronts that aren't licensed are everywhere. The city doesn't seem to mind much.

Brooklyn — Williamsburg especially — is where you want to be. Rooftops, parks, the smell on every other block in Lower Manhattan on a warm evening. New York does cannabis like it does everything: loud, present, impossible to ignore.

The One Nobody Predicted — And It Was Wild

Nobody had Thailand on their radar. Then in 2022 it became the first Southeast Asian country to effectively decriminalise cannabis and shops opened everywhere overnight. Bangkok's Sukhumvit Road turned into something completely surreal — dispensaries between 7-Elevens and street food carts.

The situation has evolved since and it's worth checking current rules before you go. But the energy of being there during that initial wave — seeing a conservative Buddhist country flip on this almost overnight — was one of the most unexpected things I've witnessed in all of my travels.

Skip the clubs near the Ramblas

The clubs within 10 minutes of the tourist belt are the ones set up for tourists. The real scene is in Poblenou, Gracia, and Sants. You need an introduction to get into the good ones — that's by design, not exclusion.

The best coffeeshop menu is never on the wall

Regulars at the better coffeeshops in Jordaan and Oud-Zuid get access to strains and products that never appear on the public board. Be a regular first, tourist second. It takes one visit to start building that relationship.

Tempelhof is the place, not Görlitzer

Görlitzer Park gets all the coverage but Tempelhof — the vast former airport converted to a public park — is where Berlin locals actually go. Massive, open, and in summer, genuinely one of the best outdoor spaces in Europe for this.

Delivery > dispensary for quality

LA's best cannabis doesn't always live in dispensaries. The delivery market in California has some incredible small-batch growers who only sell through apps. Eaze and Jane are fine; the smaller licensed delivery services have the cult stuff.

Bushwick over Williamsburg

Williamsburg is great but it knows it's great. Bushwick is where the actual New York cannabis culture is happening right now — unlicensed, semi-chaotic, and completely authentic. Understand what you're doing and it's a very different experience to anything in LA or Barcelona.

Chiang Mai over Bangkok for the real experience

Bangkok gets the tourism but Chiang Mai's scene — especially the areas around Nimman Road — is more interesting. Smaller shops, better conversations, less of a zoo. Check current regulations before anything else though — Thailand's laws are in flux.