In the US, the legal marijuana business is booming. Research institution BDS Analytics said the sector made nearly nine billion in sales in 2017. But no EU country has legalized cannabis. And in Netherlands, it's simply just "tolerated." 

Dutch authorities allow coffee shops to sell the drug on premise if they have permits, but they are not allowed to grow or store more than 500 grams on site. Nor can they promote it.

But it seems there is still a long way to go before marijuana is completely decriminalized in the country.

"They say you can't advertise anything about weed, we cannot even put a leaf of marijuana on the window or in the coffee shop because they say you are advertising marijuana and they don't want any advertisement of drugs," a coffee shop owner told CGTN.

Organizations like Union for the Abolition of Cannabis Prohibition, want cannabis cultivation legalized. They said the current laws encourage crime as shop owners are forced to buy the product illegally on the black market from street dealers and gangs.

"The problem with the policy is that any kind of production or wholesale for the coffee shop is still totally illegal. And also police are very much clamping down on any kind of production of cannabis. So this is a paradox. If the coffee shop can sell it, where does the coffee shop get the weed?" said Derrick Bergman from Union for the Abolition of Cannabis Prohibition.

Cannabis legalization may not be around the corner in the Netherlands, but this year a handful of local councils will take part in trials to regulate cannabis production by supplying coffee shops directly to cut out criminals. But those working in addiction prevention say Netherlands should not follow the US model for legalization.

"There's a difference [between] the Dutch model and the US model. In the US model it's all commercialized and brands are competing with each other, just like the alcohol market is in the Netherlands. In a model like that, health is not the top priority. You can see that people are convincing others to start using cannabis and we should always be careful with that,” said Floor Van Bakkum, a senior prevention worker at Jellinek Prevention in Amsterdam.