13 ms·

German Bundestag Passes Cannabis Legalization

272 points by 2-718-281-828 3y ago

sva_ 3y ago
You should post an English source such as https://www.dw.com/en/germanys-bundestag-votes-for-cannabis-legalization/live-68348345 https://www.dw.com/en/germanys-bundestag-votes-for-cannabis-...
- nielsole 3y ago
  > Please submit the original source. The guidelines don't say anything about language
  - sva_ 3y ago
    They don't state it explicitly, but https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=HN%20is%20an%20English-language%20site%2C%20so%20posts%20here%20need%20to%20be%20in%20English&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...
    - makeitdouble 3y ago
      I feel that's where the rubber meets the road on automatic translation. Even on HN we're seeing it as non practical or reliable enough to let users deal with their own needs directly. That's one of the reason I'm so tired of seeing translation as one of the bullet point repeated over and over for AI use. At the end of the day it will never be more than a niche if people don't trust the result (for the record, I agree they're not great)
brodo 3y ago
It's a big step and still a compromise. Let's see how this whole non-commercial approach works out. I know some people who don't want to get into growing and don't want to join a club.
- dorvak 3y ago
  This is actually a smaller step, as it needs to be approved by the Bundesrat before being effective. This could take month and it’s not guaranteed to pass.
  - brodo 3y ago
    The 180,000 people per year who will not face legal issues because of this law will disagree on how big a step this is.
    - weinzierl 3y ago
      Do you think these 180 000 people will be able or willing to join a club? With a mandatory membership fee and legally mandated minimum membership period of three months? As these clubs are not allowed to hire people and are also forbidden to allow non-members to act on club duties, a membership will mean some work too. How many of the 180 000 are willing to put in that effort.
      - muldvarp 3y ago
        It doesn't matter whether or not they will join a club. It matters that simply owning (a non-negligible amount of) cannabis is no longer illegal.
  - TillE 3y ago
    > it needs to be approved by the Bundesrat Apparently it doesn't. "Nach der Zustimmung des Bundestags kommt das Gesetz am 22. März abschließend in den Bundesrat. Zustimmungsbedürftig ist es dort nicht, die Länderkammer kann aber den Vermittlungsausschuss anrufen und die Legalisierung so verzögern." https://www.sueddeutsche.de/politik/bundestag-livestream-cannabis-legalisierung-1.6388554 https://www.sueddeutsche.de/politik/bundestag-livestream-can... They can't veto it, but they could delay it.
- lqet 3y ago
  Exactly, this is what I don't buy in the "black market will get extremely unattractive" argument. The status quo is to buy illegally (but with very low risk for the buyer, and usually excellent anonymity) from established dealers, often people with a lot of knowledge in growing/processing. The new legal approach would be to either grow yourself, or join a club [0]. I don't consume cannabis, but if I would have to choose between joining a state-registered alcohol club, brewing my own beer, growing my own grapes, or just buying a bottle of wine illegally now and then from someone who has expertise in making it (and with nearly all risk on the seller side), I would definitely opt for the latter. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cannabis_Social_Club https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cannabis_Social_Club
rileycantread 3y ago
bluntsmökenzeit
rvnx 3y ago
Curious to know what impact it will have on criminality. If dealers are making lot of money from cannabis, and the state removes that opportunity from them, then they may switch to more disturbing businesses.
- coffeebeqn 3y ago
  Most people don’t want to grow at home and the black (grey?) market will always be more profitable. Or maybe they’ll start a dispensary
- hef19898 3y ago
  The last big experiment around drug prosecutiond and legalization, the prohibition, showed a drop in crime after legalization. Out of curiosity, what other businesses you had in mind?
  - rvnx 3y ago
    Seems very logical that it drops no ? Let's say that drugs are illegal and get prosecuted, and are counted as crime in the statistics. If you legalize them, your amount of crime in your statistics drops, but the actual acts are the same in real world.
    - hef19898 3y ago
      Not just the now legalized crime, but also related crime: theft, violence, money laundering, tax evasion...
    - pixl97 3y ago
      >but the actual acts are the same in real world. You mean the stealing for money for high priced black market drugs? You mean the shootouts/high speed chases where people run from the cops because they have a bag on them? Or do you mean lighting up a joint? The thing is, it's very easy to look at the statistics of violent crimes before and after. Also the vast majority of law enforcement agencies classify their crimes so you get detailed statistics of what kinds of crimes occur on a monthly/yearly basis.
weinzierl 3y ago
EDIT: After checking what has passed, everything I wrote seems to hold up. Source: https://www.bundesgesundheitsministerium.de/service/gesetze-und-verordnungen/detail/cannabisgesetz.html https://www.bundesgesundheitsministerium.de/service/gesetze-... I've not looked into what exactly passed, but the proposal was joke. Even more so, it was joke regardless where you stand on this topic - and that's quite an achievement. The proposal was constructed in a way that it technically legalized, but in a way that I'm sure will be of no practical relevance. According to the proposal, to buy legally you had to be a member of a registered club, so no anonymity. The club could only sell what it produces (three plants per member) and could only have a restricted number of members. The club can sell at most 50 g per month, it needs an addiction prevention officer, it cannot be near a kindergarden, and so on. Very bureaucratic, so these clubs will be exactly as popular as intended.
- hef19898 3y ago
  It is a first step so, isn't it?
  - weinzierl 3y ago
    My opinion: The law is constructed such that the parties that promised it (and are now in the government) can keep face (especially in the light of the upcoming elections), but that it will not have any practical relevance.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- diggan 3y ago
  > According to the proposal, to use legally you had to be a member of s club, so no anonymity. The club could only sell what it produces and could only have a couple of members. This is basically how it works in Barcelona, Spain as well. I don't think it's legal/illegal nationwide, but we have invite-only social clubs where you can only become a member if you know existing members. I think (but I'm not sure) there is a maximum number of members per club too. And you don't "buy" weed there, but you contribute money to the organization, and you may withdraw this contribution in the future as weed. Seems to work out just fine here.
pantalaimon 3y ago
relevant for HN: The Joint Routing Protocol: http://darklab.org/jrp.txt http://darklab.org/jrp.txt
- verticalscaler 3y ago
  I subscribe to the Kat Williams Gambit myself: Everybody has their own joint so you don't share spittle with dudes like some clueless teenager. :)
  - newsclues 3y ago
    Yeah cutting out sharing joints led to much less transmission of illness like colds.
TillE 3y ago
I've read so much hand-wringing German coverage of this issue, and while sometimes comparisons are made to other countries, it's almost never mentioned that cannabis has been legal for half of the US population for years now, and the sky hasn't fallen. The system set up by this law is extremely dumb, but at least small home grows are legal, and the government is still exploring a path to commercial sales that would be compliant with EU law.
- bregma 3y ago
  Cannabis is still illegal for 100% of the US population under federal law.
  - rob74 3y ago
    What does that mean in practice? It's legal in California, but the FBI might arrest you if you go to Yosemite National Park with cannabis?
    - bregma 3y ago
      For a start it means no bank can legally lend you money for your cannabis business or they would be subject to prosecution.
      - kjkjadksj 3y ago
        A cursory google search shows that as a result of that stipulation there are in fact financing packages or lenders that acknowledge the risk and seek to meet that demand.
    - alistairSH 3y ago
      And airports and other places that are nominally under federal control. That said, airports generally care more about bombs and hard drugs, but the risk is higher than a bottle of bourbon. It's also still a disqualifier for federal employment.
- aqme28 3y ago
slashdev 3y ago
I don't use cannabis, but I wonder how much cannabis, alcohol, television, social media, etc sap energy and drive from people in general. At a societal level, is that partially responsible for the decrease in entrepreneurship? How could we tell? Less entrepreneurship means less innovation and less jobs and less tax revenue, it's bad for society overall.
- foobarian 3y ago
  You know what, let's ban it all! What could possibly go wrong. /s
  - slashdev 3y ago
    I'm not advocating for that, it was clearly a disaster. But I wonder if it's beneficial to discourage those things more through education, taxes, etc.
    - r2_pilot 3y ago
      Maybe instead of taxing it to reduce its use, we can try making life better all around so people aren't incentivized to use it? Making other things more fun/accessible would decrease the time/availability for that behavior.
      - slashdev 3y ago
        I don't think that's an either/or type of choice, do both
    - lp4vn 3y ago
      What about discouraging wealth inequality and the lack of social support for the population in general? This would be a horrifying interference of the state in the dynamic of society, right? But somehow for some people the state legislating about the behaviour of the average Joe to make sure he continues to be a well behaved cog is absolutely appropriate.
    - 3y ago
m3kw9 3y ago
The issue with cannabis as a social thing is that it tastes and smell bad, worse than cigs.
- vincnetas 3y ago
  Yeah, but smoking indoors is forbidden in most of the Europe, so this is not an issue.
  - decafninja 3y ago
    It's forbidden in the US too. However I've noticed the intensity of weed smell makes it noticeable even where tobacco smell would not be. I don't care what weed smokers do as long as it doesn't negatively affect me. However quite often their stench does. Yet another reason why I want to move to a supposedly eco-unfriendly single family home in the suburbs ASAP. Since weed became legalized, the stench in urban apartment buildings has been nauseating.
    - m0llusk 3y ago
      Had we as a society been pursuing coexistence instead of crushing people with laws then we might have made progress with this by now. Controlling odors is an engineering problem with several solutions that are not widely applied. It is also important to note that the spread and lingering of smoke smells in apartment buildings is just one symptom of a general problem of poor indoor air circulation and air quality. Addressing those issues effectively will help with quality of life and health and should be done regardless.
- kjkjadksj 3y ago
  Some people don’t mind the smell and not all ways of taking it even produce a smell or taste
- wiseowise 3y ago
  > worse than cigs. No, by a mile no.
tempodox 3y ago
So it becomes technically legal, but they put so many obstacles in your way that buying illegally will hardly lose attraction. Cannabis dealers won't go out of work any time soon.
- m0llusk 3y ago
  Likely true, and reminds me of an amusing and revealing story. There was a craft brewery that started to become popular and had to hire a relatively large number of employees to run the operation. Word got out that nearly everyone who worked there used cannabis, so police got an investigator to spy by getting hired to work in the brewery. They repeatedly asked other employees if they could buy cannabis from them, but every time the employees responded by freely sharing cannabis. Much cannabis culture is not strongly commercial. People grow and share. Maybe there is something in that which software developers could learn from.
  - ilc 3y ago
    Maybe a bit more GPL use would help here. :)
  - pixl97 3y ago
    I mean even a small operation can grow more than one person can ever smoke in their lifetime in short order. Any other commercial crop that we grow at scale is sold in the dollars per ton range. Outside of a few special cultivars there is no practical reason said drug is expensive and easily shareable for nearly free.
  - hulitu 3y ago
    > People grow and share. Maybe there is something in that which software developers could learn from. The main problem with most SW developers is that they never learn. That's why we have CADT, Windows 10 and 11, Android, Systemd, Wayland, UEFI etc.
- fabian2k 3y ago
  In the end this is more of a compromise that was still politically feasible. Depending on who governs in the future this will likely be either expanded or rolled back. Parts of this also depend on some EU regulations that might have to be changed for full legalization to be possible.
gogasca 3y ago
[dead]
LuciBb 3y ago
[dead]
ulrischa 3y ago
This map shows where you actually can consume cannabis in Berlin, taking into account the distance rules to schools etc. https://bubatzkarte.de/#10/52.5242/13.3553 https://bubatzkarte.de/#10/52.5242/13.3553
- fabian2k 3y ago
  There were some changes to that part, it is now defined as within 100 meters and in view of the specific protected location.
  - eqvinox 3y ago
    20/8704 says 200 meters. Did that get modified? I don't see anything more recent than that. Edit: ah, it's in 20/10426. "in range of sight", "sight is ≤ 100m".
    - fabian2k 3y ago
      I got that from https://dserver.bundestag.de/btd/20/104/2010427.pdf https://dserver.bundestag.de/btd/20/104/2010427.pdf I'm not sure where to find the actual text of the law in the final version.
qwertyuiop_ 3y ago
Now the Alexanderplatz is going to stink to high heavens.
haswell 3y ago
I think that on balance, legalization is a good thing. Certainly it should not be illegal when alcohol is legal. At the same time, I'm about 30 days into quitting entirely after realizing that I couldn't have a healthy relationship with it. I'm experiencing intense anxiety, dark thoughts, and have struggled with the intensity of REM rebound. My resting heart rate immediately went up about 15BPM on average as my body starts the process of finding its new equilibrium. I first started using it "medicinally" to cope with poor sleep and depression. It actually helped lower my anxiety (with the right strain). It suppresses REM sleep and dreams, which was beneficial since my dreams tended to be part of the reason I had such poor sleep. For a time, it was incredibly helpful, and it helped me establish some better habits and process some difficult things. But over time, it crept into more and more parts of my life. I never went full "wake & bake", but found myself wanting to use it earlier and earlier each day. When I did use it recreationally, I started to feel the pull even stronger. It started to majorly impact my short term memory, and I started noticing myself forgetting important things while exploring a new relationship. I started to feel like it was no longer beneficial, and decided to quit. And that's when I realized how hard it was to quit. I tried and failed multiple times before finally building enough willpower to actually do it. And there's this part of me that still worries that I'll fall back into it when things get hard. For better or worse, I'm dealing with some really difficult situations in my life and I'm staying away from it anyway. This gives me optimism, but damn, I didn't think it would be this difficult. In many ways, it feels like the pendulum has swung too far with legalization. This is not to imply I think it shouldn't be legal, but that the culture around it and the public messaging hasn't really caught up with the reality of the potential for harmful use. The public is well aware of the downsides of alcohol use, and there are well-established methods and institutions to help people deal with alcohol addiction and recovery. If someone is an alcoholic, the public understands the severity of this addiction, and recognizes the challenge that such a person faces in staying sober. But people who are addicted to cannabis often have a hard time convincing people that this is a real issue. The fact that it's not physically addictive in the same ways as alcohol and other drugs has led to the misconception that the addiction potential is not real and that the difficulty of managing it is not real. The warnings that "using this can be habit forming" don't seem to convey the reality of what it feels like to form that habit, and how hard it can be to break it. Growing communities like /r/leaves and /r/Petioles tell this story over and over. I think that the extremely high THC strains, and even higher THC concentrations in concentrates and cartridges has a lot to do with this. The stuff people are getting these days isn't your hippy uncle's weed, and while the public consciousness is calibrated on the relatively harmless stuff, the stuff that people are using all day looks nothing like that. All of this to say: be careful. I have had some incredibly good experiences with it, and I think it helped me open my mind. It helped me through a tough time. It's also really enjoyable. But it has a much darker side than many people realize, and it took me far to long to accept that I might be one of the people who can't have a healthy relationship with it. And the fact that I'd had a "take it or leave it" feeling about it for years lulled me into a false sense of security. The slide towards maladaptive use happened gradually and took awhile to notice. I hope that with the continued movements towards legalization, there is also an increase in public awareness and support for people who get themselves into trouble. More focus on the safety concerns of high THC strains and harmful use. More growers who focus on medicinally useful products vs. just chasing the highest THC.
WirelessGigabit 3y ago
And still to this day if you get caught with weed in Belgium they put you in front of a judge who is going to berate you for smoking a joint once per week. There are still random police checks checks between Maastricht and Belgian cities on the other side. Same with public transportation. Many times, when entering Belgium, cops get on the bus with a dog to see if you have weed on you. And this is the same country that allows people to drink a beer while driving home from work.
- dmoy 3y ago
  > allows people to drink a beer while driving home from work. hold up, what? I knew various European countries had much less draconian liquor laws than the US, but... while driving?
  - oezi 3y ago
    No European country restricts where you can drink (to my knowledge). Only what things you can do when drunk.
    - kdomanski 3y ago
      In Poland, drinking in public space (with some exceptions) is forbidden. Sometimes police will issue fines even for “intention to drink” if they see a person with an unopened bottle of beer.
    - swarnie 3y ago
      I had to look this up but apparently the UK doesn't either. Still, if a police officer exists within 10 miles of you and sees you and pulls you over its going to cause you a massive delay. I think its a 20 minute minimum wait before breath tests, then blood at a station.
      - leadingthenet 3y ago
        > I had to look this up but apparently the UK doesn't either. There are a few city-wide regulations in Scotland that prohibit it, possibly in other parts of the UK as well, but there's indeed no such national law.
eqvinox 3y ago
"fun fact": if someone is for whatever reason opposed to an association growing cannabis somewhere near where they have any kind of "influence" — they'd just have to get something resembling a public playground or public sports installation there. I'm willing to bet that this is gonna be how conservative local authorities force out cannabis growing.
reneberlin 3y ago
I personally prefer "woman on weed" much more than those on alcohol. But i think that wasn't the topic at all :)
- nicbou 3y ago
  It indeed wasn't the topic at all
aChattuio 3y ago
FYI: the German discrimination was/is so strong that you will lose your driver license when they catch you with weed nearly independent of the amount and location (Saturday park big city)/no car in sight
faeriechangling 3y ago
As legalization goes underway we’re now aware of how smoking and vaporizing seem to be linked to endothelial cell damage and heartattacks, probably not great for potency either. Marijuana is not a safe drug nor the panacea it’s marketed as. We also seem to be seeing higher rates of addiction to marijauna, despite it being nominally non-addictive. Only thing which appears relatively safe is oral consumption over inhaling. All the same, it’s really not THAT dangerous a drug and criminalization is senseless and a total farce. All the problems legalization causes combined pale in comparison to how dumb criminalization is.
- jenadine 3y ago
  Right. Also alcohol is not good. Tobacco is not good. Sugar is not good. But there are safe amounts.
caeruleus 3y ago
There's a nuance to this that I haven't seen mentioned so far: With this law, Cannabis will be removed from the list of scheduled drugs and turned into a simple prescription drug. It will be a lot less complicated to prescribe medical Cannabis.
jenadine 3y ago
And can you drive a car a couple of days after taking weed without losing your driver licence? In Germany, the limit of THC in the blood while driving is almost zero, AFAIK

272 points by 2-718-281-828 3y ago

sva_ 3y ago

You should post an English source such as https://www.dw.com/en/germanys-bundestag-votes-for-cannabis-legalization/live-68348345 https://www.dw.com/en/germanys-bundestag-votes-for-cannabis-...

nielsole 3y ago
> Please submit the original source. The guidelines don't say anything about language
- sva_ 3y ago
  They don't state it explicitly, but https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=HN%20is%20an%20English-language%20site%2C%20so%20posts%20here%20need%20to%20be%20in%20English&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...
  - makeitdouble 3y ago
    I feel that's where the rubber meets the road on automatic translation. Even on HN we're seeing it as non practical or reliable enough to let users deal with their own needs directly. That's one of the reason I'm so tired of seeing translation as one of the bullet point repeated over and over for AI use. At the end of the day it will never be more than a niche if people don't trust the result (for the record, I agree they're not great)

brodo 3y ago

It's a big step and still a compromise. Let's see how this whole non-commercial approach works out. I know some people who don't want to get into growing and don't want to join a club.

dorvak 3y ago
This is actually a smaller step, as it needs to be approved by the Bundesrat before being effective. This could take month and it’s not guaranteed to pass.
- brodo 3y ago
  The 180,000 people per year who will not face legal issues because of this law will disagree on how big a step this is.
  - weinzierl 3y ago
    Do you think these 180 000 people will be able or willing to join a club? With a mandatory membership fee and legally mandated minimum membership period of three months? As these clubs are not allowed to hire people and are also forbidden to allow non-members to act on club duties, a membership will mean some work too. How many of the 180 000 are willing to put in that effort.
    - muldvarp 3y ago
      It doesn't matter whether or not they will join a club. It matters that simply owning (a non-negligible amount of) cannabis is no longer illegal.
- TillE 3y ago
  > it needs to be approved by the Bundesrat Apparently it doesn't. "Nach der Zustimmung des Bundestags kommt das Gesetz am 22. März abschließend in den Bundesrat. Zustimmungsbedürftig ist es dort nicht, die Länderkammer kann aber den Vermittlungsausschuss anrufen und die Legalisierung so verzögern." https://www.sueddeutsche.de/politik/bundestag-livestream-cannabis-legalisierung-1.6388554 https://www.sueddeutsche.de/politik/bundestag-livestream-can... They can't veto it, but they could delay it.
lqet 3y ago
Exactly, this is what I don't buy in the "black market will get extremely unattractive" argument. The status quo is to buy illegally (but with very low risk for the buyer, and usually excellent anonymity) from established dealers, often people with a lot of knowledge in growing/processing. The new legal approach would be to either grow yourself, or join a club [0]. I don't consume cannabis, but if I would have to choose between joining a state-registered alcohol club, brewing my own beer, growing my own grapes, or just buying a bottle of wine illegally now and then from someone who has expertise in making it (and with nearly all risk on the seller side), I would definitely opt for the latter. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cannabis_Social_Club https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cannabis_Social_Club

rileycantread 3y ago

bluntsmökenzeit

rvnx 3y ago

Curious to know what impact it will have on criminality. If dealers are making lot of money from cannabis, and the state removes that opportunity from them, then they may switch to more disturbing businesses.

coffeebeqn 3y ago
Most people don’t want to grow at home and the black (grey?) market will always be more profitable. Or maybe they’ll start a dispensary
hef19898 3y ago
The last big experiment around drug prosecutiond and legalization, the prohibition, showed a drop in crime after legalization. Out of curiosity, what other businesses you had in mind?
- rvnx 3y ago
  Seems very logical that it drops no ? Let's say that drugs are illegal and get prosecuted, and are counted as crime in the statistics. If you legalize them, your amount of crime in your statistics drops, but the actual acts are the same in real world.
  - hef19898 3y ago
    Not just the now legalized crime, but also related crime: theft, violence, money laundering, tax evasion...
  - pixl97 3y ago
    >but the actual acts are the same in real world. You mean the stealing for money for high priced black market drugs? You mean the shootouts/high speed chases where people run from the cops because they have a bag on them? Or do you mean lighting up a joint? The thing is, it's very easy to look at the statistics of violent crimes before and after. Also the vast majority of law enforcement agencies classify their crimes so you get detailed statistics of what kinds of crimes occur on a monthly/yearly basis.

weinzierl 3y ago

EDIT: After checking what has passed, everything I wrote seems to hold up. Source: https://www.bundesgesundheitsministerium.de/service/gesetze-und-verordnungen/detail/cannabisgesetz.html https://www.bundesgesundheitsministerium.de/service/gesetze-... I've not looked into what exactly passed, but the proposal was joke. Even more so, it was joke regardless where you stand on this topic - and that's quite an achievement. The proposal was constructed in a way that it technically legalized, but in a way that I'm sure will be of no practical relevance. According to the proposal, to buy legally you had to be a member of a registered club, so no anonymity. The club could only sell what it produces (three plants per member) and could only have a restricted number of members. The club can sell at most 50 g per month, it needs an addiction prevention officer, it cannot be near a kindergarden, and so on. Very bureaucratic, so these clubs will be exactly as popular as intended.

hef19898 3y ago
It is a first step so, isn't it?
- weinzierl 3y ago
  My opinion: The law is constructed such that the parties that promised it (and are now in the government) can keep face (especially in the light of the upcoming elections), but that it will not have any practical relevance.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
diggan 3y ago
> According to the proposal, to use legally you had to be a member of s club, so no anonymity. The club could only sell what it produces and could only have a couple of members. This is basically how it works in Barcelona, Spain as well. I don't think it's legal/illegal nationwide, but we have invite-only social clubs where you can only become a member if you know existing members. I think (but I'm not sure) there is a maximum number of members per club too. And you don't "buy" weed there, but you contribute money to the organization, and you may withdraw this contribution in the future as weed. Seems to work out just fine here.

pantalaimon 3y ago

relevant for HN: The Joint Routing Protocol: http://darklab.org/jrp.txt http://darklab.org/jrp.txt

verticalscaler 3y ago
I subscribe to the Kat Williams Gambit myself: Everybody has their own joint so you don't share spittle with dudes like some clueless teenager. :)
- newsclues 3y ago
  Yeah cutting out sharing joints led to much less transmission of illness like colds.

TillE 3y ago

I've read so much hand-wringing German coverage of this issue, and while sometimes comparisons are made to other countries, it's almost never mentioned that cannabis has been legal for half of the US population for years now, and the sky hasn't fallen. The system set up by this law is extremely dumb, but at least small home grows are legal, and the government is still exploring a path to commercial sales that would be compliant with EU law.

bregma 3y ago
Cannabis is still illegal for 100% of the US population under federal law.
- rob74 3y ago
  What does that mean in practice? It's legal in California, but the FBI might arrest you if you go to Yosemite National Park with cannabis?
  - bregma 3y ago
    For a start it means no bank can legally lend you money for your cannabis business or they would be subject to prosecution.
    - kjkjadksj 3y ago
      A cursory google search shows that as a result of that stipulation there are in fact financing packages or lenders that acknowledge the risk and seek to meet that demand.
  - alistairSH 3y ago
    And airports and other places that are nominally under federal control. That said, airports generally care more about bombs and hard drugs, but the risk is higher than a bottle of bourbon. It's also still a disqualifier for federal employment.
aqme28 3y ago

slashdev 3y ago

I don't use cannabis, but I wonder how much cannabis, alcohol, television, social media, etc sap energy and drive from people in general. At a societal level, is that partially responsible for the decrease in entrepreneurship? How could we tell? Less entrepreneurship means less innovation and less jobs and less tax revenue, it's bad for society overall.

foobarian 3y ago
You know what, let's ban it all! What could possibly go wrong. /s
- slashdev 3y ago
  I'm not advocating for that, it was clearly a disaster. But I wonder if it's beneficial to discourage those things more through education, taxes, etc.
  - r2_pilot 3y ago
    Maybe instead of taxing it to reduce its use, we can try making life better all around so people aren't incentivized to use it? Making other things more fun/accessible would decrease the time/availability for that behavior.
    - slashdev 3y ago
      I don't think that's an either/or type of choice, do both
  - lp4vn 3y ago
    What about discouraging wealth inequality and the lack of social support for the population in general? This would be a horrifying interference of the state in the dynamic of society, right? But somehow for some people the state legislating about the behaviour of the average Joe to make sure he continues to be a well behaved cog is absolutely appropriate.
  - 3y ago

m3kw9 3y ago

The issue with cannabis as a social thing is that it tastes and smell bad, worse than cigs.

vincnetas 3y ago
Yeah, but smoking indoors is forbidden in most of the Europe, so this is not an issue.
- decafninja 3y ago
  It's forbidden in the US too. However I've noticed the intensity of weed smell makes it noticeable even where tobacco smell would not be. I don't care what weed smokers do as long as it doesn't negatively affect me. However quite often their stench does. Yet another reason why I want to move to a supposedly eco-unfriendly single family home in the suburbs ASAP. Since weed became legalized, the stench in urban apartment buildings has been nauseating.
  - m0llusk 3y ago
    Had we as a society been pursuing coexistence instead of crushing people with laws then we might have made progress with this by now. Controlling odors is an engineering problem with several solutions that are not widely applied. It is also important to note that the spread and lingering of smoke smells in apartment buildings is just one symptom of a general problem of poor indoor air circulation and air quality. Addressing those issues effectively will help with quality of life and health and should be done regardless.
kjkjadksj 3y ago
Some people don’t mind the smell and not all ways of taking it even produce a smell or taste
wiseowise 3y ago
> worse than cigs. No, by a mile no.

tempodox 3y ago

So it becomes technically legal, but they put so many obstacles in your way that buying illegally will hardly lose attraction. Cannabis dealers won't go out of work any time soon.

m0llusk 3y ago
Likely true, and reminds me of an amusing and revealing story. There was a craft brewery that started to become popular and had to hire a relatively large number of employees to run the operation. Word got out that nearly everyone who worked there used cannabis, so police got an investigator to spy by getting hired to work in the brewery. They repeatedly asked other employees if they could buy cannabis from them, but every time the employees responded by freely sharing cannabis. Much cannabis culture is not strongly commercial. People grow and share. Maybe there is something in that which software developers could learn from.
- ilc 3y ago
  Maybe a bit more GPL use would help here. :)
- pixl97 3y ago
  I mean even a small operation can grow more than one person can ever smoke in their lifetime in short order. Any other commercial crop that we grow at scale is sold in the dollars per ton range. Outside of a few special cultivars there is no practical reason said drug is expensive and easily shareable for nearly free.
- hulitu 3y ago
  > People grow and share. Maybe there is something in that which software developers could learn from. The main problem with most SW developers is that they never learn. That's why we have CADT, Windows 10 and 11, Android, Systemd, Wayland, UEFI etc.
fabian2k 3y ago
In the end this is more of a compromise that was still politically feasible. Depending on who governs in the future this will likely be either expanded or rolled back. Parts of this also depend on some EU regulations that might have to be changed for full legalization to be possible.

gogasca 3y ago

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LuciBb 3y ago

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ulrischa 3y ago

This map shows where you actually can consume cannabis in Berlin, taking into account the distance rules to schools etc. https://bubatzkarte.de/#10/52.5242/13.3553 https://bubatzkarte.de/#10/52.5242/13.3553

fabian2k 3y ago
There were some changes to that part, it is now defined as within 100 meters and in view of the specific protected location.
- eqvinox 3y ago
  20/8704 says 200 meters. Did that get modified? I don't see anything more recent than that. Edit: ah, it's in 20/10426. "in range of sight", "sight is ≤ 100m".
  - fabian2k 3y ago
    I got that from https://dserver.bundestag.de/btd/20/104/2010427.pdf https://dserver.bundestag.de/btd/20/104/2010427.pdf I'm not sure where to find the actual text of the law in the final version.

qwertyuiop_ 3y ago

Now the Alexanderplatz is going to stink to high heavens.

haswell 3y ago

I think that on balance, legalization is a good thing. Certainly it should not be illegal when alcohol is legal. At the same time, I'm about 30 days into quitting entirely after realizing that I couldn't have a healthy relationship with it. I'm experiencing intense anxiety, dark thoughts, and have struggled with the intensity of REM rebound. My resting heart rate immediately went up about 15BPM on average as my body starts the process of finding its new equilibrium. I first started using it "medicinally" to cope with poor sleep and depression. It actually helped lower my anxiety (with the right strain). It suppresses REM sleep and dreams, which was beneficial since my dreams tended to be part of the reason I had such poor sleep. For a time, it was incredibly helpful, and it helped me establish some better habits and process some difficult things. But over time, it crept into more and more parts of my life. I never went full "wake & bake", but found myself wanting to use it earlier and earlier each day. When I did use it recreationally, I started to feel the pull even stronger. It started to majorly impact my short term memory, and I started noticing myself forgetting important things while exploring a new relationship. I started to feel like it was no longer beneficial, and decided to quit. And that's when I realized how hard it was to quit. I tried and failed multiple times before finally building enough willpower to actually do it. And there's this part of me that still worries that I'll fall back into it when things get hard. For better or worse, I'm dealing with some really difficult situations in my life and I'm staying away from it anyway. This gives me optimism, but damn, I didn't think it would be this difficult. In many ways, it feels like the pendulum has swung too far with legalization. This is not to imply I think it shouldn't be legal, but that the culture around it and the public messaging hasn't really caught up with the reality of the potential for harmful use. The public is well aware of the downsides of alcohol use, and there are well-established methods and institutions to help people deal with alcohol addiction and recovery. If someone is an alcoholic, the public understands the severity of this addiction, and recognizes the challenge that such a person faces in staying sober. But people who are addicted to cannabis often have a hard time convincing people that this is a real issue. The fact that it's not physically addictive in the same ways as alcohol and other drugs has led to the misconception that the addiction potential is not real and that the difficulty of managing it is not real. The warnings that "using this can be habit forming" don't seem to convey the reality of what it feels like to form that habit, and how hard it can be to break it. Growing communities like /r/leaves and /r/Petioles tell this story over and over. I think that the extremely high THC strains, and even higher THC concentrations in concentrates and cartridges has a lot to do with this. The stuff people are getting these days isn't your hippy uncle's weed, and while the public consciousness is calibrated on the relatively harmless stuff, the stuff that people are using all day looks nothing like that. All of this to say: be careful. I have had some incredibly good experiences with it, and I think it helped me open my mind. It helped me through a tough time. It's also really enjoyable. But it has a much darker side than many people realize, and it took me far to long to accept that I might be one of the people who can't have a healthy relationship with it. And the fact that I'd had a "take it or leave it" feeling about it for years lulled me into a false sense of security. The slide towards maladaptive use happened gradually and took awhile to notice. I hope that with the continued movements towards legalization, there is also an increase in public awareness and support for people who get themselves into trouble. More focus on the safety concerns of high THC strains and harmful use. More growers who focus on medicinally useful products vs. just chasing the highest THC.

WirelessGigabit 3y ago

And still to this day if you get caught with weed in Belgium they put you in front of a judge who is going to berate you for smoking a joint once per week. There are still random police checks checks between Maastricht and Belgian cities on the other side. Same with public transportation. Many times, when entering Belgium, cops get on the bus with a dog to see if you have weed on you. And this is the same country that allows people to drink a beer while driving home from work.

dmoy 3y ago
> allows people to drink a beer while driving home from work. hold up, what? I knew various European countries had much less draconian liquor laws than the US, but... while driving?
- oezi 3y ago
  No European country restricts where you can drink (to my knowledge). Only what things you can do when drunk.
  - kdomanski 3y ago
    In Poland, drinking in public space (with some exceptions) is forbidden. Sometimes police will issue fines even for “intention to drink” if they see a person with an unopened bottle of beer.
  - swarnie 3y ago
    I had to look this up but apparently the UK doesn't either. Still, if a police officer exists within 10 miles of you and sees you and pulls you over its going to cause you a massive delay. I think its a 20 minute minimum wait before breath tests, then blood at a station.
    - leadingthenet 3y ago
      > I had to look this up but apparently the UK doesn't either. There are a few city-wide regulations in Scotland that prohibit it, possibly in other parts of the UK as well, but there's indeed no such national law.

eqvinox 3y ago

"fun fact": if someone is for whatever reason opposed to an association growing cannabis somewhere near where they have any kind of "influence" — they'd just have to get something resembling a public playground or public sports installation there. I'm willing to bet that this is gonna be how conservative local authorities force out cannabis growing.

reneberlin 3y ago

I personally prefer "woman on weed" much more than those on alcohol. But i think that wasn't the topic at all :)

nicbou 3y ago
It indeed wasn't the topic at all

aChattuio 3y ago

FYI: the German discrimination was/is so strong that you will lose your driver license when they catch you with weed nearly independent of the amount and location (Saturday park big city)/no car in sight

faeriechangling 3y ago

As legalization goes underway we’re now aware of how smoking and vaporizing seem to be linked to endothelial cell damage and heartattacks, probably not great for potency either. Marijuana is not a safe drug nor the panacea it’s marketed as. We also seem to be seeing higher rates of addiction to marijauna, despite it being nominally non-addictive. Only thing which appears relatively safe is oral consumption over inhaling. All the same, it’s really not THAT dangerous a drug and criminalization is senseless and a total farce. All the problems legalization causes combined pale in comparison to how dumb criminalization is.

jenadine 3y ago
Right. Also alcohol is not good. Tobacco is not good. Sugar is not good. But there are safe amounts.

caeruleus 3y ago

There's a nuance to this that I haven't seen mentioned so far: With this law, Cannabis will be removed from the list of scheduled drugs and turned into a simple prescription drug. It will be a lot less complicated to prescribe medical Cannabis.

jenadine 3y ago

And can you drive a car a couple of days after taking weed without losing your driver licence? In Germany, the limit of THC in the blood while driving is almost zero, AFAIK