From April 1, cannabis will be decriminalized in a controlled manner in Germany. So can you smoke a joint at work? It also depends on the service whether the law passed by the Bundestag on Friday will be passed by the Federal Council in the German parliament.

On Friday, the law on cannabis will be submitted to the district deputies of the Federal Council (Bundesrat). Although it does not need approval there, this legislative chamber of the German parliament could convene a joint mediation commission with the Bundestag and thus slow down the process of the law entering into force. According to the law, which has already been passed by the Bundestag, from April 1, 2024, the possession and cultivation of the drug (with numerous restrictions) must be allowed by adults for personal consumption.

“This does not mean that employees are allowed to smoke a joint during working hours,” Tobias Werner, an expert in labor law, tells RND.de.

However, according to the German lawyer, there will no longer be a corresponding legal ban. “However, there is a zero limit for certain spheres of activity. For example, anyone who drives a truck, bus or airplane is prohibited from using drugs before or while on duty, including cannabis.”

Health risks

In Germany, adults will be able to legally buy, grow and consume cannabis from April. The purpose of the new regulation is to replace the black market, to control it. But what are the health risks of consumption and when is there a risk of addiction?

“Cannabis affects cognitive abilities: abstract thinking and learning, attention and memory, perception and psychomotor coordination suffer. It also depends on whether you consume it once, occasionally or regularly,” explains doctor Professor Ursula Havemann-Reineke in the German press. “In general, the effects, symptoms and consequences vary greatly from person to person. Acute psychosis can be triggered by one joint. It can be reversible, but it can also last a lifetime.”

“With more frequent use of cannabis, the so-called dependence syndrome can develop, which is accompanied by, among other things, a loss of control and a significant change in motivation,” she added.

Administrative efforts

“We are very concerned about the health consequences and the efforts at the municipal level to ensure law and order,” German district committee chairman Reinhard Sager (CDU) told the Germania (RND) editorial network.

“It is not clear how many cultivation associations will appear and they will need to be controlled. This creates additional pressure on health care authorities and complicates the performance of existing tasks.”

Sager criticized that the county government would be burdened with driving licenses due to “more aptitude tests, driving bans and administrative procedures”. Implementation efforts need to be taken into account, and “to date, we don’t think the legislature has taken that into account enough,” he said.

Undefined provinces, promises of the government

As for the controversial legalization of cannabis, there is still no clear majority for Friday’s vote in the Federal Council. Several Länder have not yet decided whether they want to stop the law passed by the Bundestag and send it to a mediation committee.

However, the federal government promised the Länder further changes to the law and more money for prevention programs to avoid having to go to the Federal Council’s mediation committee. The German government also drew up a protocol on preventing the convening of the mediation commission on Friday. In it, the government promises to implement some of the legislative changes that the federal states have previously demanded before the rules for hemp-growing associations come into force on July 1.

According to the protocol, the control of these associations by the control authorities of the state should no longer be carried out annually, but only “at regular intervals”. This gives states “sufficient flexibility and risk-based discretion when implementing the Cannabis Act.”

In addition, associations should be prohibited from joint cultivation of larger areas. “In this way, large-scale cultivation areas comparable to commercial plantations should be excluded, which would contradict the stated goal of small-scale, non-commercial cultivation for personal consumption through the active cooperation of members of the relevant producer associations,” the government document says.

The government also wants to define by law which activities cultivator associations are not allowed to outsource to commercial suppliers. This restriction is intended to exclude the “marketing of crops that violate European law”. For example, it should be avoided that contractual partners of associations are also owners, energy suppliers or security services.

In addition, the federal government guarantees several preventive services for children and youth through the Federal Center for Health Education. A €6 million increase in cannabis addiction prevention funding this year is set to continue in the coming years. In addition, this year another 1.5 million euros will be allocated for addiction prevention.

Denial of doctors, stubbornness of the Minister of Health

Ahead of an important meeting of the Federal Council on the controversial cannabis law, the Federal Association of Pediatricians and Adolescents (BVKJ) called on the federal government to stop its plans. “The federal government must withdraw the law,” association president Michael Hubmann told the Funke media group’s newspapers on Tuesday. “This does not take into account the legitimate objections of doctors and lawyers.”

Hubman warned about the negative consequences of legalization for the protection of minors. “We’re already seeing with alcohol and nicotine that it doesn’t work in real life,” he said. Consumption is possible without any problems, bypassing legal norms. “Protection and control will not be made easier if a third substance is added by legalizing cannabis.”

Federal Health Minister Karl Lauterbach said on Monday, however, that he wants to avoid a possible failure to legalize cannabis starting April 1. He will fight throughout the week to avoid going to the Bundesrat’s mediation committee this Friday, he said, citing calls by union-led states such as Bavaria and Saxony to delay or sabotage the law by sending it to a mediation committee . .

The opposition claims violations of EU norms and international law

The Christian Social Forces (CSU), in opposition, have called for nationwide monitoring of sewage to determine cannabis consumption.

“We need more control so that Germany does not become the country that smokes weed in Europe,” the leader of the CSU parliamentary group in the Bavarian state parliament, Klaus Holeczek, told Germania (RND). “The average population’s cannabis consumption behavior can be measured in sewage,” added the former Bavarian health minister.

According to the leaders of the Union’s parliamentary groups, Germany is violating international and European law with its planned legalization of cannabis. Leaders of the factions of the CDU/CSU Union say that the hemp law violates international law, reports rnd.de.

“International law allows the use of cannabis only for scientific and medical purposes in the narrow sense, but not for cultivation and commercial trade,” says the draft resolution, which the heads of the CDU and CSU parliamentary groups presented in Brussels.

“United Nations drug control bodies assess the broad legalization of cannabis, as envisioned by the federal government, in current decision-making practices as a violation of the United Nations Narcotics Control Convention.” Since the European Union is a party to the central UN Convention on Narcotic Drugs of 1988, its provisions are also part of European law.

In addition, the marijuana law violates the so-called Schengen Implementation Convention of 1990 and Council Framework Decision 2004/757/JHA of 2004. “Therefore, the federal government will violate European law and launch an infringement procedure against the Federal Republic of Germany,” the CDU/CSU Union resolution also states.

Arguments of the authorities

According to the federal government, current cannabis drug policy has reached its limit. Despite prohibitions, cannabis use is on the rise, especially among young people. In Germany alone, more than four million people between the ages of 18 and 64 used marijuana in the last 12 months of 2021.

This is stated in the official communique of the German government.

“Cannabis purchased on the black market often poses a health risk. It may be contaminated and contain unknown levels of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the effectiveness of which consumers cannot assess.

That’s why the federal government is pushing for a new drug policy. The draft law now passed by the Bundestag is based on the two-pillar key provisions document that Federal Health Minister Karl Lauterbach and Federal Agriculture Minister Cem Özdemir presented in April 2023. Protection of children and youth is a central component of the proposed law.

The federal government is concerned with reducing the illegal cannabis market, controlling the quality of cannabis, preventing the transmission of contaminated substances and thereby helping to improve health care, doing more for education and prevention, and strengthening the protection of children and youth.

In the future, adults will be allowed to grow cannabis in limited quantities privately (up to three plants) or in non-profit associations. Because of these associations, cannabis cultivation should be allowed to be transferred to adults for personal consumption in a controlled manner.

Possession of up to 25 grams of dried cannabis should be exempted from punishment in the future. This applies to public places. The limit of 50 grams of dried cannabis applies to private premises.

A general ban on advertising and sponsorship by cannabis consumer and producer associations should be introduced.

Possession of cannabis remains prohibited for minors. There are also special regulations for young people – with smaller delivery volumes and reduced THC levels.

Do not use cannabis in the presence of young people. In addition, there should be a ban on consumption near, for example, schools, playgrounds, children’s and youth facilities or sports facilities.

The draft law provides that the evaluation of the law will be carried out after it enters into force. This concerns the protection of children and young people, as well as cannabis-related organized crime.

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