The federal government wants to take the first step towards the legalization of cannabis this Wednesday and will discuss a draft law by Health Minister Karl Lauterbach (SPD) in the cabinet. According to this, adults would be allowed to possess 25 grams of cannabis in the future. To a limited extent, self-cultivation at home or in associations is to be legalized. There will be no shops selling cannabis for the time being. The legalization course of the traffic light coalition is controversial. The medical profession warns against trivializing the health risks – and the German Association of Judges fears an additional burden for the judiciary.
Federal Minister of Justice Marco Buschmann (FDP) contradicted this criticism. “I am very confident that a more pragmatic drug policy will lead to relief for the courts. The skepticism expressed by the judges’ association may also be due to the fact that there are general political reservations about this project,” he told the newspapers of the Funke media group. Buschmann said his ministry will monitor how the law works in practice. “In general, when people can legally buy and use cannabis, there are fewer cases that end up in court.”
The judges’ association, on the other hand, had declared that the many special rules for cannabis clubs and for the cultivation and sale of the drug, which are to come with legalization, should be checked and violations punished. The Interior Ministers of North Rhine-Westphalia and Saxony, Herbert Reul and Armin Schuster, as well as Hesse’s Justice Minister Roman Poseck (all CDU) are critical of the red-green-yellow federal government’s draft law. “This law will involve a complete loss of control,” Schuster told the editorial network Germany.
Lauterbach will present the draft law at a press conference at noon, after the summer break in the Bundestag it will be discussed and decided. The new rules could come into force later this year.
Growing cannabis at home or together in special clubs or smoking a joint quite legally – the law should make this possible, for example. According to current plans, young people under the age of 18 who are caught with cannabis should be able to be obliged to attend prevention courses.
The legal policy spokeswoman for the SPD parliamentary group, Carmen Wegge, supports the plans: “The advantage of cannabis legalization is that we will strengthen the protection of children and young people, that we will prioritize health protection and fight the black market”. So far, the cannabis ban has meant that there is no educational work at all in schools. The authorities relied on “people already know not to consume it.” Wegge refers to countries where cannabis has already been partially or fully legalized. There, consumption by children and young people is declining, and the black market is also being weakened.