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Germany Will Move Forward with Marijuana Legalization

110 points| qwytw | 3 years ago |marijuanamoment.net | reply

78 comments

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[+] lisasays|3 years ago|reply
Good. Time to finally put those dealers in Görli (largely) out of business.

For non-locals: that's Görlitzer Park, Berlin, which has largely been owned (and rendered nearly useless) by the dealers for several years now (along with the neighboring streets, and a good chunk of the recreational land on the canal zone nearby).

[+] pengaru|3 years ago|reply
I find it hard to believe marijuana is the only substance dealers in a park serving an urban center with a penchant for clubs/night life like Berlin are peddling...
[+] giraffe_lady|3 years ago|reply
How did they render it useless? I don't know anything about this but I'm picking up "no one goes there anymore it's too crowded" vibes.
[+] ostenning|3 years ago|reply
The dealers in Görli, Hasenheide etc are often there because either they have no working visa or have no identity papers at all.

Legalising weed wont change the systemic social issues of Berlin

[+] rayiner|3 years ago|reply
Marijuana decriminalization amd legalization was billed in part based on the notion that it wasn’t going to change people’s behavior, just decriminalize existing activity. At least in DC, it’s led to a noticeable uptick in marijuana use. You can smell it in the streets in many parts of the city, including in office buildings. It’s sad to see Germany go down the same road.
[+] Mizza|3 years ago|reply
Yeah, we should keep locking people up and ruining their lives because you notice a smell sometimes.
[+] millzlane|3 years ago|reply
This is interesting. I live in Baltimore where people have been smoking it in the streets illegally for decades. And I have never once smelled it in my house or my office. I smell more piss in DC than marijuana smoke.

I'm pretty glad that Germany has decided to stop locking people in cages for a flower. It's due time we focus on other crimes against humanity.

[+] barbazoo|3 years ago|reply
> it’s led to a noticeable uptick in marijuana use

It'd be interesting to know if that coincided with a reduction in use of other, more destructive drugs such as alcohol.

[+] random314|3 years ago|reply
Sad to see that harder drugs like alcohol are legal even today. Does anyone in your family consume alcohol, rayiner? Pretty sad to see alcohol being sold so openly and consumed, in front of children.
[+] whateveracct|3 years ago|reply
More people should try weed who haven't. Melts that stick up the butt, as if were.
[+] ed_mercer|3 years ago|reply
Sad. We need to move away from smoking, not encourage this cancer-causing good-for-nothing behavior. Not to mention it causes streets to smell like a skunk.
[+] lm28469|3 years ago|reply
I used to smoke weed, I think it's not necessarily bad, but like alcohol, or even psychedelics, some people are really not meant to touch these things. Especially teenagers/young adults, people with predisposed to get addicted, &c.

That being said Europe smokes a lot of weed already, making it legal will help with a lot of side effects of drug traffics. I just hope they use proper pedagogy and support: for well balanced, educated and healthy individuals it's a really good tool, for other people it can be a social/professional death sentence (like alcohol)

> Not to mention it causes streets to smell like a skunk

I'm not sure they'll make it legal to smoke outdoors. In many countries alcohol is legal but drinking in the streets isn't for example.

[+] kanwisher|3 years ago|reply
Weed doesn't cause cancer, perhaps you are thinking of cigarettes
[+] komali2|3 years ago|reply
I think I can argue that it's rational to take care of the most pressing issue you face in a given circumstance. I know we as humans aren't very rational, which is why for example I'm typing this message right now instead of working on a task a client wants done today.

BUT we can probably agree it's a generally good thing to focus on bigger problems before smaller ones.

It seems whether or not marijuana causes cancer is an open question: https://nida.nih.gov/publications/research-reports/marijuana...

> Whether smoking marijuana causes lung cancer, as cigarette smoking does, remains an open question.67,70 Marijuana smoke contains carcinogenic combustion products, including about 50% more benzoprene and 75% more benzanthracene (and more phenols, vinyl chlorides, nitrosamines, reactive oxygen species) than cigarette smoke.67 Because of how it is typically smoked (deeper inhale, held for longer), marijuana smoking leads to four times the deposition of tar compared to cigarette smoking.71 However, while a few small, uncontrolled studies have suggested that heavy, regular marijuana smoking could increase risk for respiratory cancers, well-designed population studies have failed to find an increased risk of lung cancer associated with marijuana use

Meanwhile, alcohol kills 74,000 people each year in Germany https://movendi.ngo/news/2019/04/18/study-germany-has-an-alc... and costs the country 40,000,000 euro for healthcare costs.

Yet a cursory look at your comment and submission history finds nothing on the topic of this (compared to weed) HUGE killer in Germany. Maybe you're taking up the fight somewhere else, but I think, just like I'm not going to finish this comment and get right back to work, you probably are laser-focusing on this objectively minor health issue (weed usage) for whatever reason, perhaps reefer-madness propaganda? I'm not sure, I'm curious why you think it's an issue compared to something like alcohol, that actually kills lots of people in Germany (I couldn't find any statistics tracking how many people are killed each year in relation to weed in Germany, but my understanding of the drug is that the number should be 0 in terms of actual overdose).

[+] justaj|3 years ago|reply
Not sure how you've landed on smoking (especially since it's not even mentioned in the article)

There are a multitude of other methods of consuming cannabis.

[+] jagermo|3 years ago|reply
Good. My retirement plan is to have a "pick your weed" style plantation, similar to the "pick your strawberries" fields. probably have to think about pricing for product used on site.
[+] subpixel|3 years ago|reply
I live where weed is legal and all the charm goes right out the window once the allure of illicit fun is gone.

There are weed shops everywhere, like fast food places, and the clientele is pretty similar to Burger King.

Is there room for high-end product? Sure. But by and large it feels like a commodity play. There might as well be a weed section next to the beer section in the gas station store.

[+] anononaut|3 years ago|reply
Picked ganja still needs to be cured, like tobacco. Love the idea, though. I'd visit.
[+] ChatGTP|3 years ago|reply
As an insomniac who doesn’t live in Germany, I’m jealous!
[+] dunefox|3 years ago|reply
There is no way this would be legal. No chance.
[+] fxtentacle|3 years ago|reply
"They could also grow up to three plants for personal use, with rules on enclosing them to prevent youth access" is so wonderfully German. I'm sure there'll be a small 20-page booklet that explains the enclosure rules.
[+] nicbou|3 years ago|reply
Finally!

I have a guide on how to buy weed in Berlin. A big chunk of it warns readers about how sketchy and dangerous it is if you don’t have a trusted contact. Weed is frequently contaminated with really nasty chemicals.

A Canadian or American reader might not appreciate how different the environment is from their pre-legalisation days. The weed you buy is genuinely dangerous.

[+] lm28469|3 years ago|reply
You have dozen of telegram channels with thousands of sales, rating systems, home delivery, &c.

Buying from the streets is a tourist thing

[+] euroderf|3 years ago|reply
I would not be surprised to hear that the beer industry is lobbying against this.
[+] AndyMcConachie|3 years ago|reply
I wonder if France and Italy will let The Netherlands legalize it as well now.