Germany’s move to legalise cannabis slows over fears of clash with EU laws
New ‘degree of caution’ in coalition government over promises of breakthrough before end of this year
Monday, September 12, 2022
Legal hurdles are slowing down German plans to allow the controlled distribution of cannabis among adults, with fears that a badly crafted law to legalise the drug could be thrown out by the European court of justice. In the initial debate around legalising cannabis in Germany, the main obstacle identified was the UN 1961 single convention on narcotic drugs, whose obligations Canada and Uruguay ignored when they took steps to legalise the drug. Now, however, Berlin increasingly sees the convention as the smaller challenge as the binding nature of various European laws has come into focus. A Council of the European Union framework decision from 2004, for example, requires member states to ensure that the sale of drugs including cannabis are “punishable by effective, proportionate and dissuasive criminal penalties”.
