The German parliament has officially passed a bill to legalize marijuana nationwide.
Two days after the cannabis legislation was discussed in eight Bundestag committees, the committee voted 407 to 226 for final passage on Friday.
The bill, which will legalize possession and home cultivation and give clubs permission to distribute marijuana to members, now heads to the Bundesrat, a separate legislative chamber that represents Germany's states, although its members cannot prevent the reform from passing .
While advocates have said legalization would take effect in April if it takes effect, there are new questions about that timeline. The Federal Council could request that the law be referred to a mediation committee to clarify the law's criminal law implications, which could mean several months of additional discussions.
The plenary vote comes weeks after the leaders of Germany's so-called traffic light coalition government announced they had reached a final agreement on the legalization law, addressing outstanding concerns, particularly from the Social Democratic Party (SPD).
Health Minister Karl Lauterbach, who has been in charge of the cannabis plan for months, said before the vote that the country was “fundamentally changing our cannabis control policy to combat the black market.”
Here is my speech for legalization #Cannabis. The previous ban policy has failed. More children using, more black market, toxic cannabis products, increasing crime. It can not go on like this. Education instead of bans, without a black market, is a better solution https://t.co/E1I0bKuxR7
— Prof. Karl Lauterbach (@Karl_Lauterbach) February 23, 2024
“The second goal is better protection for children and young people,” he said, pointing to the high consumption rates among young people under the current law. The legalization proposal is an “urgently needed modernization of our cannabis policy.”
The Green Party's Kirsten Kappert-Gonthe called the current system of criminalization “absurd” and said that prohibition has resulted in “children and young people in our country being able to easily get cannabis on every corner” because there are no regulations In contrast, the legal market will emerge.
A big success!
The #CanG was passed in the Bundestag.
We're ending prohibition and #Criminalization and clear the way for youth and health protection.
After this long process, I am very happy about what has been achieved and thank everyone for their commitment.🥦— Kirsten Kappert-Gonther (@KirstenKappert) February 23, 2024
Kristine Lütke, a member of the Free Democratic Party (FDP), said that legalization “strengthens individual freedom in Germany.”
“Today one chapter ends and a new one begins,” she said. “We are talking about a historical turning point. We are voting for a paradigm shift in German cannabis policy.”
We ensure more child, youth and health protection + create a significant improvement in medical cannabis. The judiciary will be significantly relieved and we will improve prevention.
— Kristine Lütke MdB (@kristine_lutke) February 23, 2024
Through legalization, “consumers know where the cannabis comes from, how much they have, how much it contains and know that it is not mixed with harmful substances – much more dangerous drugs,” Lütke said.
Members of the center-right CDU/CSU alliance firmly rejected the reform. Rep. Simone Bourchardt, for example, argued that legalization would place “an additional burden” on the country’s “overburdened health care system,” citing marijuana’s “impairment of cognitive abilities.”
Before the final vote, MPs rejected opposition requests from the CDU/CSU and Alternative for Germany to block legalization.
According to a new survey, Germans support legalization, but only by a narrow majority. The YouGov poll found that 47 percent supported the reform, 42 percent opposed it and another 11 percent were undecided.
A final vote on the legalization bill originally planned for December was ultimately canceled due to concerns from SPD leaders.
Lawmakers had already postponed their first debate on the bill, which eventually took place in October, ostensibly due to the conflict in Israel and Palestine. They also postponed a vote scheduled for November as supporters worked on improvements to the bill.
At a meeting in December, the health minister took questions from members, some of whom oppose legalization. At several points, he pushed back against lawmakers who claimed that legalization would send the wrong message to youth and lead to increased underage use, saying their arguments “misrepresented” the legislation.
Lawmakers also recently made a number of adjustments to the bill, mostly aimed at easing restrictions that faced opposition from advocates and supporters in the Bundestag. These included increasing home ownership limits and removing the possibility of jail time for owning anything more than the allowable limit.
Lawmakers also agreed to delay implementation of the reform and planned to make possession and home cultivation legal for adults starting in April. Social clubs would open in July where members could purchase marijuana.
Officials eventually plan to introduce a complementary second measure that would establish commercial sales pilot programs in cities across the country. This legislation is expected to be presented after it has been submitted to the European Commission for review.
Be that as it may, the Bundesrat, which represents the German federal states, had already tried to block the planned reform in September, but ultimately failed.
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Bundestag MPs recently held a hearing in the Health Committee, where opponents criticized some elements of the proposal.
The panel also heard a competing policy proposal from the Union, a political alliance of the Christian Democratic Union and the Christian Social Union (CDU/CSU), which would not legalize marijuana but instead “improve health protection and strengthen education, prevention and research.” would. Kappert-Gonther said at the time.
The health minister responded to early criticism of the bill from doctors and law enforcement by stressing that the reform was linked to a “major campaign” to educate the public about the risks of cannabis use.
While the German federal cabinet approved the first framework for a legalization measure at the end of 2022, the government also said it wanted to seek EU approval to ensure that it would not breach its international obligations by adopting the reform.
The framework was the result of months of review and negotiations within the German administration and the traffic light coalition government. Officials took a first step toward legalization in 2022, launching a series of hearings designed to help craft legislation to end prohibition in the country.
Government officials from several countries, including the United States, also met in Germany last November to discuss international marijuana policy issues as the host country works to implement legalization.
A group of German lawmakers and Narcotics Commissioner Burkhard Blienert separately visited the U.S. in 2022 and toured California cannabis companies to learn about their country's approach to legalization.
The visit came after senior officials from Germany, Luxembourg, Malta and the Netherlands held a first-of-its-kind meeting to discuss plans and challenges related to the legalization of recreational marijuana.
Coalition government leaders announced in 2021 that they had reached an agreement to end cannabis prohibition and introduce regulations for a legal industry, and previewed certain details of that plan for the first time last year.
A novel international survey published in 2022 found majority support for legalization in several key European countries, including Germany.
Biden is being pushed to re-regulate marijuana by veterans and law enforcement, including a group that includes the DEA chief
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