Poet and author Simon Vinkenoog, who had been known as Amsterdam's "weed ambassador" since the 1960s, has died aged 80, his family said on Sunday. He had been ill for some time, having undergone a leg amputation and suffered a fatal brain haemorrhage.

His first volume of poems, entitled Wondkoorts ("Traumatic Fever"), appeared in 1950; one of his last works was a bundle of translations of Allen Ginsberg's poetry, Me and my peepee (2001). Twenty years earlier he had also turned his attention to the American Beat Poets of the 1950s, publishing Jack Kerouac in Amsterdam. Vinkenoog loved the city where he was born and where he lived, as he expressed in his ode to his native town Am*dam Madmaster, published last year.

In 2004 Simon Vinkenoog was elected Poet of the Fatherland (Dutch poet laureate), a position which he held until 2005.

Drugs advocate
Vinkenoog was an advocate of recreational drugs use, as illustrated by titles like How to Enjoy Reality (1968). He often appeared in public, reciting his poetry. One of his most recent appearances was in 2007, when he lent his support to a demonstration in Amsterdam against a proposed ban on magic mushrooms. In the 2006 general elections, he was a figurehead candidate for a small party which promoted the legalisation of cannabis. The party did not succeed in winning any seats in the Lower House.