German Federal Council Voted on Cannabis Legalization on April 1st

The German Federal Council (Bundesrat) voted in favor of the CanG law without calling for the establishment of a mediation commission, which means that the new law will enter into force on April 1st, 2024.

In one of the most important votes on the liberalization of cananbis law in European history, the German Bundesrat decided this morning to adopt the CanG law. The bill will legalize possession of up to 25 grams of cannabis for adult use. It will also allow citizens to grow up to three cannabis plants at home and have up to 50 grams of cannabis in their home. Cannabis clubs will also be legalized , while public consumption will be allowed, although there are strict rules on where this is acceptable.

It is also crucial that the bill will remove cannabis from the list of narcotic drugs. This change is expected to have a significant impact on the country’s already thriving medical cannabis market.

The road to the adoption of CanG was long and difficult, the act was significantly weakened, repeatedly delayed and met with resistance at every step. Despite strong resistance from representatives of individual states, the European Union’s most populous state managed to achieve ambitious goals, paving the way for legal reform.

Read more about the vote on cannabis legalization by the german Federal Council and find the latest cannabis news of the day with the Hemp.im mobile app.

German Federal Council: A stormy debate on cannabis legalization

In Friday’s session (March 22nd), many speakers passionately presented their arguments to the German Federal Council, most of them encouraging people to vote in favor of establishing a mediation commission. The Prime Minister of Saxony-Anhalt, Reiner Haseloff (CDU), started the debate by unsurprisingly opposing the bill.

He suggested that the bill would “kill people,” expand the illegal market and cause an increase in road accidents caused by people driving under the influence of cannabis.

He added that the Federal Minister of Health and the architect of the law, Karl Lauterbach, is “deceiving” people by claiming that the establishment of a mediation commission would result in the death of the law. Saxony therefore abstained from voting.

Similar controversial statements were made by his CDU colleague, Saxony’s Prime Minister Michael Kretschmer, who compared cannabis to methamphetamine and said the bill was contrary to democracy, again announcing he would not vote for it.

Judith Gerlach from Bavaria (CSU) raised widespread concerns about the additional work this would put on the justice system and law enforcement. She added that this is a “Pandora’s box” that must be kept in the mediation committee.

The Minister of Justice of North Rhine-Westphalia stated that while he is not against legalization, he is opposed to an amnesty clause due to the potential overload of the justice system, adding that a delayed amnesty clause should be included. A similar opinion was expressed by the senator for Justice and Consumer Protection in Berlin, Dr. Felor Badenberg.

Mr. Lauterbach presented the first positive argument for the bill, stating that the number of young cannabis users had already doubled despite its illegality, and questioned the principles of the current system.

The path to the vote by teh German Federal Council

To try to steer the bill away from the mediation committee, where the bill could “die,” the federal government offered a number of key concessions on controversial points.

The key is that the German Federal Council decided to keep the amnesty clause for people previously convicted of cannabis possession, which many decision-makers were afraid of. It was alleged that this would overwhelm their judicial systems and was the main reason why the vote was expected to be so close.

The Federal Ministry of Health will provide an additional €6 million in funding that will be allocated to the development of cannabis addiction prevention programs. The government also promised to allocate 20 million euros to support the preventive work center.

More changes have been introduced to the regulations regarding associations cultivating hemp, the so-called cannabis clubs by introducing “regular inspections” instead of annual inspections.

In addition, “large growing areas” will be excluded to prevent cannabis associations from turning into commercial growing operations, and outsourcing operations to third parties will be prohibited.

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(Featured image by Shelby Ireland via Unsplash)

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