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German health minister fights to prevent cannabis legalisation’s indefinite delay
EURACTIV Monday 18 Mar 2024 The bill to legalise cannabis in Germany is in danger of being delayed indefinitely due to significant opposition from the states, but Federal Health Minister Karl Lauterbach is determined not to give up on his flagship initiative. The German cannabis bill will be discussed in the Bundesrat, parliament’s second chamber, on Friday. He said on Monday that he would be lobbying all week to prevent the bill from being referred to the mediation committee in the Bundesrat this Friday. Negotiations in the mediation committee could drag out the process to the extent that the bill could not be finalised before the next federal election in 2025, effectively killing it. “Then we would lose the unique opportunity to reform the failed cannabis policy here. In my view, that would be a triumph for the black market,” Lauterbach said. The law, due to come into force on 1 April, would allow adults over the age of 18 to possess up to 25 grams of cannabis for personal use. For both the Greens and the Liberals (FDP/Renew), the legalisation of cannabis was a key campaign promise. As a result, the ambitious bill was made a priority when the three-party coalition (SPD/S&D, Greens, FDP/Renew) took office. Now the bill is being threatened by the opposition on the state level. Although the bill does not need to be approved by the Bundesrat, the states represented there could call for a mediation committee to find common ground between the two legislative bodies – the Bundestag and the Bundesrat. Conservative federal states led by the largest opposition party CDU (EVP), such as Saxony and Bavaria, are planning to call this committee in. “My aim is to ensure that this law never comes out of the conciliation committee again,” Saxony’s Prime Minister Michael Kretschmer wrote on X on Saturday. In response, Lauterbach appealed to “every state co-governed by the SPD and the Greens” that “the cannabis law will die next Friday if the mediation committee is called.” In order to convince the wavering states, Lauterbach announced that the federal government would issue a statement by Friday in which it hopes to address “some of the concerns of the states that now want to appeal to the mediation committee”. Meetings are also planned between the justice ministers of the governing coalition parties. One point of contention for the states is an amnesty that would make past crimes no longer punishable under the new law. Some states argue that this would require individual review of cases, putting an additional burden on the justice system. https://www.euractiv.com/section/politics/news/german-health-minister-fights-to-prevent-cannabis-legalisations-indefinite-delay/
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