Germany: 3 cannabis bills before Parliament

Last Thursday, 3 bills on cannabis were discussed to the Bundestag, the German parliament.

The first bill, presented by the left-wing party Die Linke, proposed decriminalizing possession of 15 grams of cannabis at federal level. Currently in Germany, simple possession of cannabis always leads to the opening of a criminal file, which is usually suspended for «lack of public interest».

The second bill, presented by the Liberals from the Freie Demokratische Partei (FDP), called for the creation of legal bases for cannabis pilot projects in Germany, so that Länder or cities could implement their own legislation. To date, the German Ministry of Health has consistently rejected requests for pilot projects, citing a lack of legal basis for doing so.

The third bill, presented by the Greens, lays the foundations, in 68 pages, of cannabis regulation in Germany. The text has been in the parliamentary circuit since 2015 and regularly rejected.

Will Germany end up legalizing cannabis?

Cannabis law reform has so far stalled in Germany due to Angela Merkel's difficulties in forming a viable government. The SPD would tend to go further than the medical legalization of cannabis, but the other coalition party, the CDU, is stalling on the issue.

In purely mathematical terms, for the first time, a majority of parliamentarians in the Bundestag (part of the SPD plus the other 3 small parties) are in favor of liberalizing cannabis laws. So far, however, the bills presented have been referred to committees for further examination and resubmission to Parliament when the next government is elected to the Bundestag.

During last week's debates, the conservative CDU criticized the opposition parties’ cannabis legalization plans, the far-right AFD party mentioned meth' more than cannabis, and the SPD sent positive signals but didn't lean completely towards legalization.

Today, the SPD has the future of Germany's cannabis law reforms in its hands. Any changes will otherwise be postponed for at least 4 years.