Germany is legalising cannabis - should the UK do the same?

[Joolz]

One sunny afternoon five years ago, 32-year-old Jens was sitting in a Munich park, rolling a joint and listening to his friends playing g­­­uitar, when suddenly someone grabbed his arm and twisted it around his back.

 

“It was secret police, you know like undercover, dressed as cool dudes in snapbacks and all that,” he recalled.

 

“It was completely over-the-top. There was just a cute girl playing guitar and her brother and me, nothing dangerous at all.”

 

Jens managed to smooth-talk his way out of arrest but it was a close call – if he’d been busted, he could have lost his driving licence.

 

On 1 April, Germany’s new regulations will come into effect after the Bundestag (German parliament) greenlit its long-anticipated marijuana reforms in late February. It means Germans will be allowed to carry up to 25 grams of ganja in public, as well as cultivate up to three plants at home. In a few months, distribution will be authorised through not-for-profit cannabis clubs. However, under-18s will still be barred access, and consumption within 100 metres of a school or kindergarten is verboten.

 

“I couldn’t believe it – they were talking about it for years,” Jens said. “It seemed implausible they would do something so logical. It’s super, super-exciting – also the way they’re planning to do it with the cannabis clubs, instead of selling the licences to huge corporations.”

 

Not everyone is delighted with the changes.

 

“Cannabis poses a serious threat to the growing brain; it often leads to psychiatric illnesses in adolescents and young adults, such as anxiety disorders or forms of depression,” said Jakob Maske, spokesman of German paediatricians association BVKJ, which last year released a joint statement with other medical associations opposing the proposed legalisation.

 

“Therefore, the protection of minors must be taken into account, which is what the law provides for, but in our opinion not to a sufficient extent.”

 

The move by the EU’s most populous nation has added to calls for the UK to adopt the same approach.

 

“In the UK we only have medical cannabis legal with effectively only private provision, as the public service, the NHS, is not prescribing – only five prescriptions in five years,” neurologist Professor Mike Barnes told i.

 

“I think the German legalisation may speed up the full legalisation in the UK, but frankly there will not be change any time soon as no major political party has any inclination to make it legal for recreational purposes. Maybe one day.”

Steve Rolles, senior analyst at Transform Drug Policy Foundation, which wants the UK drug market to be legalised and regulated, believes the days of cannabis prohibition in the UK are “numbered”.

 

“Despite the lack of support from either of the two main political parties, public support for cannabis legalisation for adult recreational use is growing; depending on how the question is asked, support is regularly at or above 50 per cent now,” he said.

 

“In the absence of political leadership, people power remains the critical factor – in the US, it was popular opinion reaching a majority across party lines that proved a tipping point. The wave of global reforms, particularly in the US and EU, certainly changes the nature of the debate.

 

“Cannabis legalisation can no longer be portrayed as a radical policy when it’s being pursued [by] respected strategic allies making the change and doing so much better than we are. It’s frustrating, but it’s just a matter of time.”

 

Germany’s is just the latest 420-friendly legislation passed in Europe. In 2021, Malta became the first EU country to legalise weed. Growing up to four plants and carrying seven grams is allowed, although smoking in public or in front of children is not, punishable by a fine. In October last year, two cannabis clubs were the first to be licensed to dispense the organic inebriant. Malta was followed by Luxembourg in 2023, although the permitted amounts are smaller at three grams.

 

Contrary to first impressions, marijuana is not actually legal in Holland: Amsterdam’s famous coffee shops operate in a grey area of the law where retail sales are tolerated but wholesale supply is not – the so-called “backdoor problem”. But in December last year, a four-year trial run of fully legitimate coffee shops began in the southern cities of Tilburg and Breda, supplied by a handful of licensed farms. A similar pilot project is underway in several Swiss cities through selected pharmacies. And in war-torn Ukraine, President Volodymyr Zelensky recently signed a bill authorising medical marijuana within six months, tasking the health ministry to draw up the rules.

 

The moves echo the United States, where Washington and Colorado legalised recreational marijuana back in 2012. Since then, pot prohibition has been fully lifted in half of American states and Canada. Could the dominoes fall in Europe?

“Czechia is also now preparing a law which will be quite similar to the German one,” noted Tom Blickman of the Transnational Institute in Amsterdam.

 

“[EU] countries can have their own legislation if it’s exclusively limited to personal consumption of cannabis. But if it’s beyond that – a dispensary-type of system – that’s problematic. There has to be a change in European legislation and that’ll be difficult, because other countries in the European Union are not at all willing to facilitate: I’m talking about Sweden, France or Hungary. You need a qualitative majority to change the European legislation and that’s not there yet. They can do these kind of pilot projects, but experimental pilots come to an end after 4-5 years, and then what?”

 

But, Mr Blickman added, EU restrictions no longer apply to Britain.

 

Clinical cannabis was approved in the UK in 2018 but it’s still difficult to get hold of through the NHS, pushing patients to pricey private clinics or black market plugs, who are cheaper and sometimes offer a better selection of strains.

Many police officers apparently haven’t read the memo, as there have been reports of patients being handcuffed, their medicine confiscated, and even summoned to court.

 

https://inews.co.uk/news/world/germany-legalising-cannabis-uk-2950874

 

[Slippy One]

like this will happen in our lifetimes..