German Cabinet approves liberalization of Cannabis Possession | Hacker News Reader

German Cabinet approves liberalization of Cannabis Possession

politico.eu

71 pointsarcho69 comments

I live where Cannabis is completely legal and towns decide whether to approve or deny retail locations. In my view the benefits of legalization have mostly to do with counteracting the various downsides of enforcing laws that prohibit it. E.g. arresting people, harassing people, and creating a taboo-mystique that makes and keeps young people interested.

What I don't see is any significant change in the way marijuana is perceived among adults. Few people will judge you harshly if you are a marijuana user, but it's not like people are now passing around joints at parties. In my group of friends I know a mom who is a bedtime stoner and a dad who eats a gummy most weekend days. I have a stash that I usually only break out when people are visiting from out of state - one $60 trip to the weed store easily lasts me a year.

The 'new market' for marijuana is basically about regular users, people who desire and can tolerate marijuana on a daily basis. The product in the recreational shops is all about highest-potency, maximum-impact and that's what is driving the retail side of things. I don't see the market growing, in fact I think it's a race to the bottom as supply greatly exceeds demand.

I used to think that over time marijuana would just wind up behind the counter at the gas station, but I now think it's most likely to remain roped off the way some US states only let special, single-purpose stores sell spirits.

Maybe this will stop my car from being checked by the police, every, single, time, I drive through Germany with my dutch license plate.

I think cannabis should be legal but sold behind the counter with id checks to people over 18, with no advertising and no branding. You should not be allowed to smoke in public, only at home.

Basically the same as cigarettes in Australia.

Legal, cheap, available, but not commercial.

Having said that, I’d be surprised if any level of legality happened in Australia in the next ten years. This is an extremely conservative country.

On top of that it should have the same rules applied to cigarette branding.

Health risks need to be clearly exposed in the packaging

Australia is not the example to hold up for ‘cheap’. Cigarette taxes are amongst the highest there of anywhere.

I also don’t share your pessimism with legalisation. It’s already tremendously easy to get a medical cannabis prescription, which is a route several of my mates have gone down. Moreover, look at the recent changes for MDMA and psilocybin therapy, in which Australia is a world leader.

I instead think the major laggard will be around roadside testing - that’s where Australia’s strict driving whilst intoxicated framework will run up against the fact that current tests will show a positive result far after any effects are gone.

Weed has been legal in Canada for a few years.

I've been smoking for years before that.

No problems from smoking a joint in a park and going for a bike ride has never been a problem for me.

Should Cannabis be more or less commercial than Alcohol?

> You should not be allowed to smoke in public, only at home.

Why?

To be honest, I don’t hate the smell but it is very pungent and dominates. Having been in several cities where marijuana is legalized, you can often only smell there smoke rather than getting to enjoy the smells of restaurants, food stands, and even just fresh laundry.

People smoking at home can be a lot more disruptive. I would get woken up at night because of the extreme pungency of my neighbour's weed. It can catch on the nose in a physical way beyond simply being smelly... although coming home to my house smelling of weedy cat urine was kind of miserable too.

Given the choice, I say anyone smoking it should have to sit in a grow tent with air scrubbers otherwise stick to edibles.

Legalization gives people non-smelly options. Edibles, concentrates, vapes all have no or very subtle smell. It’s really the burning plant matter that causes the smell

In the context of Germany, I don't think they decriminalize anything but buds and smoking /vaporization.

edible,concentrates, extract vapes, drinks .... All likely gonna stay in a very weird spot legal wise

Time to patent (and lobby to mandate) bongs with a 1m³ air filtration system attached to them. Who's in?

Same for cigars. This comes very close to "taste policing". If you can some ciggies on the street, then you can smoke all things (legal/decriminalized) on the street. Or it becomes whimsy.

This can be countered in many ways, and I presume you realize that 'home' is ventilated into exactly same open air as everything else, basically nobody has carbon filters that would make the smell actually disappear.

THC oil vapes don't have any typical smell, at least not the ones I've tried. They are superior to smoking plants in many ways, be it health effects, strength of effect or cost. You can have edibles (I don't like how they take very long to manifest but for medicinal use they should be better by principle).

I am not against ban in public per se, but lets be consistent - cigarettes, cigars etc should be handled exactly same, with same punishments.

If you can get high from second hand smoke it could trigger mental health episodes.

Because it’s unpleasant to be around? Many places are banning cigarette smoking in parks because it sucks to be around and contributes litter.

I agree I just don't think it should be illegal to smoke outside just because of the smell, it seems kind of extreme.

Cigarettes are not cheap in Australia and they are on the road to making then illegal. That is a horrible example.

> The proposal would allow people over 18 to grow up to three cannabis plants for personal consumption and to possess up to 25 grams

If I got 25g off 3 plants I’d be quite upset, so this doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. Am I missing something?

It doesn't make any sense, law done by bureaucrats with no clue about the topic... I would expect country like Germany would leave this to actual neutral experts (ie not those running addiction clinics since they all keep telling everybody that all drugs should be banned completely forever... just like asking head of DEA in US how strict weed policies should be, well since its most of their work is cannabis no wonder it was handled for long time cca same as heroin).

The proposal before that had a clarification by Lauterbach that the alive plant does not count to the 25g, so u shouldn't grow 3 plants at same stage of life

But even 25g from one plant is on the low side! So you could easily have the farcical situation where you can grow weed but can’t legally harvest all of it!

Correct :(, but smallest plants can only have 5-10g harvestable, having a big plant through lots of energy input which can have 100+g definitely is out of the scope of a Solo person consuming legally weed

Having 3 plants would make the weed buds stale/old until u get to consume it (for the average consumer that is) the laws are dumb, but good first step

Yeah that seems way low. In oregon you can have 4 plants and 8 ounces total (227g) at home, and can carry 1 oz (28g) on you at any time. Those are a lot more reasonable limits.

Sharing is caring.

> If I got 25g off 3 plants I’d be quite upset, so this doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. Am I missing something?

I think you're supposed to smoke it. /s

So is this making just flower legal, within the bounds of personal use - or more likely, cannabis clubs?

Or does this include legalizing the sale of THC products e.g. edibles or shatter?

The law is rather complex (as is German tradition), but basically it legalizes cannabis social clubs, personal use with limited possession, and limited personal production (3 flowering plants at a time).

Here are all the 183 pages: https://www.bundesgesundheitsministerium.de/fileadmin/Dateie...

Clubs Only hash n cannabis

Personal ownership, potentially edibles made from flower only (any kind of extraction but cbd is illegal), and any kind of food/tobacco /nicotine/other drugs is illegal in social Club law

The fact it isn't just legal in 90% of the world shows how out of touch most "democratic" governments are.

It does not. A lot of people, especially the rural populations across the world, are strongly opposed to the idea.

In italy the constitutional court blocked a referendum on the matter to be held (I suppose because they didn't want people to turn up and vote, and there were other questions about the legal system that they preferred failing due to insufficient quorum).

Rural population are also strongly opposed to homosexuality, gender nonconformity, queers, atheism, non-dominant religions, alcohol, metalheads, goths, emos, scene kids etc.

At least the amount of sundown towns have started to diminish.

There’s still absolutely no reason to extend this provincial bigotry to national legislation. When the insanity is locally contained, the people discriminated against can at least leave the shithole.

One of my biggest disappointments from Jacinda Ardern is that she hosted a referendum on legalisation, lost it 48/52, then instead of taking that as a mandate to at least decriminalise or whatever she did nothing.

Your biggest disappoint is that she followed the democratic process?

I'd say a 48% vote to do something is a mandate to do a pared back version of it, yes. She was just incredibly cautious as a politician, and as a result hasn't really left much of a tangible legacy as far as policy impact goes.

You can thank the mighty United States of the A for it. In India my dad used to tell he went to government rationed cannabis stores to buy it. Then some stupid drug treaty made by the Greatest nation in the history of mankind came into effect making weed illegal overnight.

India is a bit beyond ridiculous and just shows when Asshole with properly big A (Nixon) is given enough power, he can fuck up most of mankind for few generations easily. Just to have more oppressive tools available against people not aligned with state (hippies, Mexicans). Also shows that people will generally show a big fat middle finger to government and keep doing what they want to do, but its a very useful tool for oppression and creates a lot of corruption surface.

As to why its such a ridiculous situation in India - as per my limited backpacker's experience marihuana is a sacred plant, used for thousands of years to celebrate god Shiva, one of main deities in Hindu pantheon. Seeing a sadhu (holy man) to smoke chillum is as regular sight as birds flying in the sky, I was once even given such a chillum within bigger group of sadhus on Ganges bank (I think in Haridwar).

Its like India becoming world dominating power and starts forcing every single christian country on the world to ban alcohol or using wine in religious ceremonies. And they actually implemented it for solid 6 decades so far, via United nations being a slave to US (and when its not, US presidents are quoted about kicking them out or simply ignoring its existence).

Recent surveys in Germany showed slightly less than 50% in favor.

Can you think of any other crimes with a near 50% approval rating?

exceed the speed limit

What % actually against though?

disgusting eww, big woe to all those who consume drugs!!

WTF is up with the spam accounts on this topic? This one is literally created minutes ago just to post this trash comment.

Mandatory Bill Hicks quote:

"Isn't making a plant against the law the same as saying that God made a mistake?"

We need some constitutional guarantee that reschedules all victimless crime to offenses at worst, or not a problem at best.

As long as people can't smoke and legally drive with the car the next day, it's useless for most

I see how this statement makes sense for some, but many people in Germany, especially in big cities, drive a car only a handful of times a year, if they even have a license.

'many people' - less than a third of germans live in big cities. The vast majority of adults have licenses, almost all from the stats I see.

I don't think most people drive a car every day. Actually not sure that most people drive at all, especially in Germany.

There are 49M personal vehicles in Germany out of 83M people.

You really think it’s that rare for a German to drive?

Didn't assume it's rare, just if it's the majority. But yeah your numbers clearly point to a majority being drivers. I guess even most public transport users do have a car then for occasional use.

There are many cars and many car owners and many car drivers in Germany, I think the stat is something like >3/4s Germans own cars. There happens to be public transport and bicycle infrastructure proportionate to the density of a region (ie more in cities), but lots of Germany is still rural, sparsely populated, and dominated by cars for getting around. If you aren't from/in Germany and visit it, you'll see how popular cars are here and that is unlikely to change soon.

Actually not sure that most people drive at all, especially in Germany.

Germany is definitely a car country and, outside a handful of large cities, rather rural.

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