DW write
How do the Greens want to legalize cannabis?
The Green Party says it wants “to dry up the black market for cannabis and push back organized crime” with its new drug policy. To do so, they seek to pass legislation that enables the legal and controlled distribution of cannabis in licensed stores. Here are the key aspects:
- adult private individuals would be allowed to purchase and possess up to 30 grams of cannabis or three cannabis plants for personal use.
- regulated and supervised system for cultivation, trade and distribution of cannabis.
The idea is to relieve police and public prosecutors of having to pursue low-level possession cases, while at the same time increasing financial resources that could be used for prevention, risk reduction and therapy, according to the party’s website.
Conservatives stick to prohibition
In 2020, Germany’s Bundestag parliament rejected a cannabis control bill put forth by the Greens. The conservative CDU/CSU argued legalization would lead to increased consumption. One of their members, Stephan Pilsinger, pointed out the health risks and long-term consequences of cannabis use, noting that Germany already has enough people addicted to legal substances such as alcohol and cigarettes.
Angela Merkel’s CDU is the last of the major political parties in Germany to maintain a strictly prohibitive stance on drug policy, refusing to agree to legalization policies laid out by the Greens, the Social Democrats, the Free Democrats and the Left party.
Cannabis helpful in fighting COVID-19?
Last year, a Canadian study suggested that certain active ingredients in the psychoactive drug could also increase the protection of cells against the coronavirus. Researchers believe some ingredients may reduce the virus’ ability to enter cells in the lungs, where it attaches, multiplies and spreads.
“The results on COVID come from our studies on arthritis, Crohn’s disease, cancer and others,” Dr. Igor Kovalchuck, professor of biological sciences at the University of Lethbridge, said in an email to DW.
If the study proves correct and is peer-reviewed by other researchers in the field, Annalena Baerbock could have a strong argument on her hand for the upcoming elections.
Their Website on Cannabis Policy
We create clear rules in drug policy instead of criminalizing
We stand for a humane drug and addiction policy that neither plays down drugs nor ideologically demonizes them. We want to protect children and young people effectively from drugs. We want to strengthen the responsibility of responsible adults as well as effective prevention. Addicts need help. Consumers should no longer be criminalized, because that has dire consequences for many and does nothing. Drugs should be regulated according to their risks.
Many of the health risks associated with illicit drug use, such as dangerous infectious diseases, contamination, and overdoses, are actually the result of criminalization, not of the substance in question. Contaminated syringes that have been used multiple times transmit infections. The active ingredient concentrations vary between five to 60 percent. Dealers mix all sorts of substances with drugs from glass to flour to lead to add bulk and make more money. A few years ago heroin was mixed with the anthrax anthrax. There are no controls on the black market. Internationally, the repressive drug policy has destabilized states such as Mexico and entire regions in Africa and South America and led to serious human rights violations.
Green drug policy is based on the three pillars of prevention, regulation and harm reduction . We rely on credible prevention and want to strengthen the responsibility of responsible adults. We protect children and young people effectively against drugs with our policies, and we aim to limit drug advertising. Anyone who irresponsibly sells drugs such as alcohol, cannabis or tobacco to children or young people must be punished.
We want to protect people’s right to self-determination and reduce the health risks associated with excessive or health-risky drug use. People who use drugs should no longer be criminalized. Psychoactive substances should be regulated according to their health risks. Ideology is out of place. The only decisive factor should be the health risks that regular consumption of these substances entails.
Addicts and other people with risky drug use need our help and acceptance. They should have good health care and effective treatment options available. Drug users must be able to be sure that their drugs are not contaminated.
This is what we intend to do: This is how we will create clear rules in drug policy
- We want to dry up the black market for cannabis and drive back organized crime. To this end, we will introduce a law that enables the legal and controlled distribution of cannabis in licensed specialty shops. In the future, private adults should be allowed to purchase and own up to 30 grams of cannabis or three cannabis plants for their own use. At the same time, we want to create a regulated and monitored system for the cultivation, trade and distribution of cannabis. In contrast to today, consumer and youth protection as well as addiction prevention should take effect.
- We do not want to criminalize any new bans and drug users any longer. This also relieves the police and public prosecutors. Financial resources are released that can be used for prevention, harm reduction and better therapy offers.
- We want to enable so-called drug checking. Consumers in the club scene, for example, should be given the opportunity to have psychoactive substances checked for dangerous ingredients or admixtures. This partially limits the existing health risks of these substances, reducing poisoning or overdosing.
- We want to guarantee good health care for addicts and enable needs-based offers of help. This also includes ways to dispense clean syringes to reduce infectious diseases such as HIV or hepatitis.
- We want effective and credible prevention strategies for all substances – including legal substances such as alcohol, tobacco and medication. In addition, the dangers of tobacco and alcohol should be pointed out more intensively. We reject advertising for nicotine. For example, we want to limit the advertising of tobacco in public spaces in order to better protect children in particular. We want to guarantee consumer protection for new products such as electronic cigarettes. We reject a ban. In order to better protect gambling addicts from the enormous debt, we want to defuse gaming machines in order to reduce the possible financial losses in these games and to limit the risk of addiction.
https://www.gruene.de/themen/drogenpolitik
