cross-posted from: https://lemmy.zip/post/1520149
Archived version: https://archive.ph/jTCrJ
Archived version: https://web.archive.org/web/20230816141231/https://www.euronews.com/2023/08/15/german-cabinet-set-to-approve-plans-to-liberalise-cannabis-rules
Can you maybe add some actual legal details here? Because as far as I know cannabis is indeed illegal on the federal level in the US, too. Which is the whole point they try to change here.
Just like in a lot of US states, several EU countries have legalized it to the point where it’s legal or at least decriminalized on the consumer level. But that doesn’t do shit if production and sale aren’t legal on a bigger level as it either breeds a criminal network in the background doing the logistics or just scattered local and private production often also cut of from the financial system completely as on that federal level cannabis is still illegal.
So the actual point here is legalization on der German federal level and also comply again with the bigger EU legal frameworks. To get rid of the black market and to get cannabis production and sale regularly taxed and controlled.
The difficulty is not some imaginary conservativism in Europe or Germany or misconceptions about the dangers of cannabis. It’s simply not doable without bending and working around a lot of existing laws and regulations including even the UN’s Commission on Narcotic Drugs.
For the same reason you might have some states where cannabis is legal for a decade and more that half of all states having it legalized in the meantime by now. But you are also still far away from actual legalization in your whole country and on the federal level as the US has also bound themselves to decades old UN and other agreements that categorically prohibit legalization.
That’s also the whole reason it took that new Germqan government full two years for the first (and very restricted) draft of a law when what they wanted was full legalization. Not only are single conservative German states fighting tooth and nail against a German-wide legalization, but their plans were also constantly shut down by the EU as incompatible with EU law. And other countries in the EU aren’t helpful either. Some went for their own and also very flawed way of just decriminalization and the ones open to legalization just watched for years now hoping Germany will do the work and solve the issue with the EU.
fantastic post, thank you
i tend to assume that most of the “Conservative” energy is brought by the beer industry… they fight it pretty hard in the US, with good reason… my alcohol expenditures have evaporated since legalization here…
Yes, that’s right. Cannabis is illegal federally in the United States, and I also find that to be strange and without real merit.
However I live in the state of Oregon where recreational cannabis has been legal for quite a while, legal dispensaries are all over the place, and each household can grow up to 4 cannabis plants, and so on. It’s cheap, legal, very easily available to people over 21, and most importantly, becoming normalized.
Federal cannabis laws are mostly irrelevant to the average user, but are certainly still relevant to the industry for financial and shipping reasons, though I don’t work in cannabis so I can’t really go into details. As a cannabis enjoyer, you aren’t supposed to take it across state lines and it probably wouldn’t be smart to try to bring it through airport security, but we have open borders between states and there’s effectively nothing stopping you from driving between states with cannabis. (Though it’s probably smart to be aware of state level laws wherever you travel.) Federal laws don’t impede or supersede state laws necessarily (it’s complicated), and when you live in a part of the country where it’s legalized it can be surprising (and sad) to remember that there are still places in the US where people are jailed for simple possession.
I can’t speak to all of Europe but having recently visited Ireland, the UK and the Netherlands (a place that has been famous in the past for its progressive laws), the difference from how cannabis is treated in those countries vs here in the US West Coast and Canada seems stark.
We do have a significant black market here, but from what I understand that’s almost entirely based on demand from overseas Asian markets where the stuff is still highly illegal. Afterall, its the illegal market demand that creates demand for illegal growers, not the legal market. Oregon puts in effort to crack down in illegal growers and sellers, and all of the legal entities in the chain are registered, registered, taxes, and have their products tested.
But anyway, it’s not a competition. I think Cannabis ought to be legalized and tolerated worldwide. Europe does a lot of things better and faster than the US, but personally I feel that you are far behind on cannabis law (based on my limited, anecdotal experiences visiting Europe in recent years). Both the EU and the US federal government should dramatically change their laws with regards to cannabis and stay out of the way of the areas that want to legalize it.
It’s a little bit more “legal” than decriminalisation in more European countries if you consider paying for membership in a CSC, where the buying is more a service fee than one-to-one sale. They’re also non-profit cooperatives (democratically owned), which is pretty interesting.
Although the Nordics which are usually pretty progressive, have not even decriminalised recreational use yet - so they’re definitely being weirdly conservative about it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cannabis_Social_Club