How a nightmare turned into a dream: the birth of Mambo
By Michel Degens
My name is Michel Degens, I’m 38 years old and I live in Belgium. In April 2013, I founded the second Cannabis Social Club of Belgium, the Mambo Social Club. We are a club that grows cannabis for the personal use of their members; we do this in compliance with Belgian law.
The keystone of our work is a Ministerial Guideline written in 2005 that states that every adult can possess three grams of cannabis or one cannabis plant if this happens without disturbance to others (no minors, no selling, not in public etc.,). If you get caught with the maximum three grams of cannabis or one cannabis plant, the police officer can write down your name and make a simplified complaint( nothing will come of this, it won’t even be mentioned in the statistics), and you can keep the cannabis and / or plant in your possession. The police do not have the right to take it from you, if you are abiding the rules and keeping to the three grams or one plant in possession. So this is the keystone of our existence, the ministerial guideline of 2005.
I never had dreamed that I should have to go to all the trouble of founding a Cannabis Social Club to be able to smoke my joint. In fact ever since I can remember people from my town, Hasselt would jump in their car for a twenty minute drive to the city of Maastricht in The Netherlands to buy their weed in one of the coffee shops in town. Life was easy in Belgium, being so close to the Dutch border. This is how I did it twenty years ago and how everybody else did it for almost thirty years. This is how it has always been ever since I can remember, in Hasselt weed always was just a twenty min drive away from the Maastricht coffeeshops.
I was lucky enough to get a job in one of the coffee shops in Maastricht and I was a very happy coffeeshop employee during five years of my life. I worked in a relaxed atmosphere and there was always something nice to smoke around.

Licensed coffeeshops in Maastricht are being forced to close down and hand the supply of cannabis to illegal street dealers.
All this changed with the new laws that where effective from May 1st 2012, when it was no longer possible for foreigners to buy cannabis in parts of The Netherlands and for Dutch people to buy cannabis without registration. As a result of these new laws the coffeeshops lost their customers to the illegal market and home dealers. The coffee shops lost their clients and the employees lost their jobs. The black market is thriving like never before in Maastricht at this moment. 400+ ex-coffee shop employees are sitting at home and not are paying taxes on their earnings anymore, while dealers are taking over the streets and try to sell anything to anybody.
So on may 1st 2012 the unimaginable happened to me, after twenty years, the people of Belgium where no longer welcome in Maastricht. I lost my job and I lost my weed that day. The dream was threatening to turn into a nightmare. I needed my social lubricant, my medicine, my mistress. I do have a medical subscription for almost 20 years and I have always followed the doctor’s guidelines happily ever since. The coffee shop has always been a reliable supply for me to get my medicine, especially when you are working in one. The cannabis is cheaper than in the pharmacy and works just as well or even better and you don’t need to get a doctor’s prescription every time you need some.
I had heard and read of a cannabis social club in Belgium called Trekt Uw Plant. They were growing cannabis for their members while abiding the Belgian law. I knew what they did (growing one plant for each member) and I had been following them passively for a few years in the media and on the Internet.
Now, being a employee of a Dutch coffee shop there was never any need to cultivate a single cannabis plant for your personal use, I had always lived where there was an abundance of cannabis available, so I didn’t do much more than follow them a bit on the computer…. But after may 1st (I call it P-Day from prohibition) … all that changed; I had to come up with something else to get to my medicine. I have never had broken any rule anywhere in regards to selling/buying drugs and I was not planning to do so now. I have never bought cannabis in the street or with home dealers; I’de always bought my cannabis in the secure confinements of a licensed coffeeshop.
It’s needless to say that the cannabis social club system that Trekt Uw Plant had worked out looked very appealing and interesting when there is no resource for hassle free cannabis. One plant is a lot better than no plant at all, and I was very happy with the possibility to have my own plant grown collectively with others in a collective growroom. I got in touch with them and became a member of the club.
A bit later my first own plant was harvested and collected at the club. This was a revelation to me. I found myself standing in Antwerp, in my own country, holding a bag of Amnesia Haze, that was legally mine, from a better quality than I knew from the coffeeshop I worked in, for less than half the price I paid in the coffee shop, sure to be 100% organically grown, paid by bank transfer, and accompanied with information about the product, printed on a nice paper and smelling great and looking awesome… I was godsmacked, I could not believe what was happening, but it was real for sure… I was holding my bag honestly priced top grade Amnesia in my hands, from my own plant that had my name and passport copy attached to it. I was so proud, happy and relieved. I never had dreamt my country had come that far, it was such a relief this experience. That was the day I found again my love for the cannabis plant and for my country.
In my hands I had the proof that life in Belgium now was better than in the Netherlands. I was so proud. From that moment on I really believed in the cannabis social club model. I got in touch with the board of the club and I founded a regional division of the club in the town where I live. We started out as a regional division of Trekt Uw Plant in may 2012 with 10 members. Everybody involved worked voluntarily in our division and after almost a year we had saved a small budget, but sufficient to pay for the foundation of an independent cannabis social club. The Mambo Social Club was founded in April 2013 and is named after my dog Mambo. Mambo is my best friend ever and is my Yorkshire Terrier- Shitzu mix breed, he’s always happy to see me and I love him very much. Doggies don’t get to the same age humans do and in this way I can honour his friendship long after he will be gone. The name Mambo symbolizes love and loyalty and fun and friendship for me, this was a good name for a social club I thought, and you must admit, it has a cool sounding to it … The Mambo Social Club.
The one and only reason for the creation of the Mambo Social Club was the fact that I’d like to have some good cannabis available for my personal use without breaking the law and getting in contact with dealers and other people I’d rather like to avoid.
Michel Degens, a Belgian national, is a former coffeeshop employee in Maastricht who lost his job following the ban on sales of cannabis to foreigners in the south of Holland. He is chair the the Mambo Cannabis Social Club in Belgium and will be introducing New York Times journalist and best selling author, Doug Fine, at his talk Too High To Fail: Cannabis and the New Green Revolution, to be held at London Southbank University on on Wednesday November 13th, 2013.
Thanks Michel, the story is lovely, and inspirational .
Dutch Poolitie have maimed me so much that I am now 4 times slower than I used to be and in Far more pain!
After 8.5 years, & a lot of money, getting as well as I was, especially after Physio, and I was walking fine without the crutch for up to 1Km before Poolitie maiming and near murder on Aug 12 2013.
Why!!!?
Because I was doing as prescribed by a Dutch doctor (who Refused to issue a repeat prescription of Bedrocan – which is illegal!) – most Dutch doctors prescribed the same apart for one, “politically powerfully connected”, ‘dr’ deJager whom other Drs told me, “She is severely mentally ill!” –
and I was growing my own three plants, as allowed by Dutch Law.
Poolitie not only nearly killed me but the stole all my medicine!!!
Poolitie & Gemeente (local Council), housing association, doctor’s representatives, & social workers tell me that in this part of Netherlands, “We don’t give a F@ck about the Laws of Netherlands! We make our own Laws & Rules here & cannabis is Not Tolerated & you must Obey, Sir, or you Will have no home!”.
I guess I should have accepted the offer by Social Services in large town in Belgium to move there, with their assistance, in 2009 – they actually predicted what would happen… ..and it has… .in what they called, “two faced racist Netherlands!”
You can do an awful lot with one plant and probably yield more than 3 grammes from it ! So what if you are caught with your harvest after the plant has gone (maybe a kilo or more if you have done it right). Do you have to prove that the cannabis you possess came from a single plant? What would you need to do to prove it ?
The people who drafted this guideline must realise that as soon as your plant is harvested you will be in possession of more than 3 grammes (and you cannot sell it or give it away).
I would settle for this law in the UK – one plant in a greenhouse or under a few LED fixtures and nourished by a deep water culture system the size of Jacuzzi would be enough to supply even the heaviest user. Plants yielding up to 10 lbs have been grown outdoors in California (check out Jorge Cervantes Youtube channel for details). 1 of these plants would provide a user with 160 ounces or over 3 ounces per week if done once a year ! 😎
The coffeeshop ‘Pick Up The Pieces” seen in the picture is a coffeeshop in the center of Amsterdam (Oude Hoogstraat 5).
good luck let me know how to meet you when I’m in belgium
voici la piste à suivre en belgique les autorités compétantes ont délivré une autorisation de production de cannabis à une ou des sociétés pharmaceutiques en belgique alors vous devez demandez le respect de notre constitution et principalement l’article 10 qui stipule que nous devons être traiter égalitairement devant la loi, alors pourquoi respecter la loi hors que celle-ci est régie par notre constituttion et oui mesieurs les américains nous vivons dans une dictature ici en belgique ou personne ne respecte plus notre constitution d’ailleurs le pays est au main d’un criminel pédophile protéger par les juges
This initiative from Trekt Uw Plant is very admirable and brave for what it is, but nothing more… I’ve been using cannabis for about six years now due to chronic pain from a work related back injury. Lots of patiënts could benefit from a government regulated production and distribution of medical cannabis products, but instead we’re being forced to either follow their ill conceived excuse of a law (1 plant/3 grams) … which doesn’t make any sense… at all. OR we try reserving a plant at the good folks of a cannabis social club. Too bad most of these establisments are unable to help you out since the waiting lists are already stacked to the rafters for many months to come. If the Police decides to raid the place anyway (…), all of your personal data extracted from the club’s computers and the copies wrapped around your plant are probably going straight into their database. I’d simply like to see a fair and honest effort towards legalising medical cannabis in Belgium, as a first step.
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