Amsterdam Lets You Buy Drugs—But Bans Burger Ads
6th May 2026
Amsterdam is one of Europe’s most permissive cities, where prostitution is celebrated and going to a ‘coffee shop’ regularly involves getting high on cannabis.
It’s hardly surprising, then, that the city’s decision to ban public adverts for meat—alongside fossil fuel products such as petrol cars and airline travel—has been met with a mix of ridicule and outright condemnation.
Green officials say the move is part of their broader climate strategy. But Belgian MEP Barbara Bonte on Monday said that it more closely resembles “what happens when people with zero-point-zero sense of reality and way too much free time get bored.”
No More Meat and Fossil Fuel Ads in Amsterdam Streets
British foreign policy analyst—and former aide to Margaret Thatcher—Nile Gardiner described the ban as “insane,” while Prague politician Ond?ej Kubín pointed to the contradiction: “In Amsterdam, you can buy a joint and choose a prostitute from a window, but the city won’t sell you advertising space for a hamburger because it has a large carbon footprint.”Writer André Assi Barreto also predicted that “meat will be treated publicly in the future as the cigarette is today.” And Christopher Snowdon, from Britain’s Institute of Economic Affairs, said the move vindicated those who warned that banning cigarette adverts “would lead to cranks banning adverts for anything they dislike.”
Now, activists are already pushing to extend the ban beyond Amsterdam, with some campaigners in Britain urging Labour to adopt similar restrictions nationwide and calling on other cities to follow suit.