The leaders of Germany’s coalition government say they have reached a final agreement on a bill to legalize marijuana, resolving outstanding disagreements that had delayed action and setting the stage for a vote in the final week of February and enactment in April.
In a joint statement, leaders of the Social Democratic Party (SPD), Free Democratic Party (FDP) and Greens said the proposed regulations “are a real milestone for a modern drug policy that strengthens prevention and improves health, child and youth protection.”
I hope this will undermine the illegal trade in my country the Netherlands as well. The Netherlands has some of the most retarded laws when it comes to weed. Weed is technically still illegal here. We only have a toleration policy and non of it is codified in the law. There is only a mandate in place that says that possession laws don’t have to be enforced and that certain shops are allowed to sell but can’t grow and cultivate weed. The idea was that it all comes from home growers who are allowed to have a few plants. So guess where all the weed comes from, it all comes from the illegal circuit. The stupid toleration policy only made criminals into multi millionaires. And these criminals of course expanded their business and are now also active in the cocaine, meth and xtc trade. And now the Netherlands is the biggest drugs distributor of Europe
The Netherlands has those laws because they are restricted by the EU. Germany isn’t properly legalising weed either, instead it’s a decriminalisation where the only avenues to procure cannabis are through non-commercial agriculture. Proper change needs to come from the European level.
That’s not entirely true. The Dutch toleration policy started in the 70’s so before the Schengen Agreement. The reason to implement a mandate instead of codifying it into law and why it is a half assed mandate was to placate the right wing Christian parties.
Yes nowadays the EU plays a role into why the Dutch haven’t updated their laws, but it’s mostly internal pressure from the right for why they haven’t done anything substantial in the last three decades. In those decades the center right libs were always part of the government and they have been blocking any proposal to legalize weed. Only now they have opened up to the idea of government produced weed, since their tough on crime policies and war on drugs haven’t amounted to anything.