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A bill to legalize marijuana in Germany is officially on the legislative agenda for next week, signaling that plans to enact the reform by April are on track.<\/p>\n
Advocates are cheering the development in the Bundestag, though the planned vote in the Finance Committee on Wednesday will need to be followed up with action by the Health Committee and then the full chamber.<\/p>\n
The move to place the legislation on the agenda<\/a> comes about two weeks after leaders of Germany\u2019s so-called traffic light coalition government announced that they\u2019d reached a final agreement, resolving outstanding concerns<\/a>, primarily from the Social Democratic Party (SPD).<\/p>\n Lawmakers said the bill, originally brought forward last year by Federal Health Minister Karl Lauterbach, was being slightly revised to expand and expedite monitoring and reporting requirements related to the illicit market.<\/p>\n Georg Wurth, an activist and CEO of the German Hemp Association, said on Wednesday that the scheduling of the Finance Committee vote \u201cmakes it extremely unlikely that it will be stopped again now,\u201d according to a translation.<\/p>\n \u201cOther committees, especially health, and the Bundestag itself are likely to follow through next week,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Das #CanG<\/a> steht f\u00fcr n\u00e4chsten Mittwoch auf der Tagesordnung des Finanzausschusses. Es wird damit extrem unwahrscheinlich, dass es jetzt nochmal gestoppt wird! Weitere Aussch\u00fcsse, insb. Gesundheit, und der Bundestag selbst d\u00fcrften n\u00e4chste Woche durchziehen.https:\/\/t.co\/IMbSpa9Fal<\/a><\/p>\n \u2014 Georg Wurth (@WurthGeorg) February 14, 2024<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n \u00a0<\/p>\n The agenda for next week also includes an opposing motion to \u201cstop cannabis legalization\u201d filed by the Christian Democratic Union and Christian Social Union (CDU\/CSU) parliamentary group.<\/p>\n Members of the committee are also set to discuss the government\u2019s response to the Federal Council that represents German states, which previously unsuccessfully sought to block the reform.<\/p>\n A final vote on the legalization bill that was initially planned for last month\u00a0was ultimately called off amid concerns from SPD leaders<\/a>.<\/p>\n Lawmakers had already delayed their first debate on the legislation, which was ultimately\u00a0held in October,<\/a>\u00a0ostensibly\u00a0due to the conflict in Israel and Palestine<\/a>. They also\u00a0pushed back a vote scheduled for November<\/a>\u00a0as supporters worked on improvements to the bill.<\/p>\n At a meeting in December, the health minister took questions from members, some of whom oppose legalization. At several points, he\u00a0pushed back against lawmakers who suggested that legalization would send the wrong message to youth<\/a>\u00a0and lead to increased underage consumption, saying their arguments \u201cmisrepresented\u201d the legislation.<\/p>\n Lawmakers also\u00a0recently made a raft of adjustments to the bill<\/a>, mostly designed to loosen restrictions that faced opposition from advocates and supporters in the Bundestag. They included increasing home possession maximums and removing the possibility of jail time for possessing slightly more than the allowable limit.<\/p>\n The legislators further agreed to stagger the implementation of the reform, making possession and home cultivation legal for adults beginning in April. Social clubs that could distribute marijuana to members would open in July.<\/p>\n Officials are eventually planning to introduce a complementary second measure that would establish pilot programs for commercial sales in cities throughout the country. That legislation is expected to be unveiled after its submitted to the European Commission for review.<\/p>\n Following the bill\u2019s final reading in the Bundestag, it will go to the Bundesrat, a separate legislative body that represents German states. Members of the Bundesrat\u00a0tried to block the proposed reform in September but ultimately failed<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u2014 Lawmakers in the Bundestag\u00a0recently held a hearing in the Health Committee<\/a>, at which opponents criticized some elements of the proposal. The body also heard a competing policy proposal from The Union, a political alliance of the Christian Democratic Union and Christian Social Union (CDU\/CSU), that would not legalize marijuana but instead \u201cimprove health protection and strengthen education, prevention and research,\u201d Kappert-Gonther said at the time.<\/p>\n The health minister responded to early criticism of the bill from medical and law enforcement groups by emphasizing that\u00a0the reform would be coupled with a \u201cmajor campaign\u201d<\/a>\u00a0to educate the public about the risks of using cannabis.<\/p>\n While Germany\u2019s Federal Cabinet approved the initial framework for a legalization measure in late 2022, the government also said it wanted to get signoff from the EU<\/a>\u00a0to ensure that enacting the reform wouldn\u2019t put them in violation of their international obligations.<\/p>\n The framework was the product of months of review and negotiations within the German administration and the traffic light coalition government. Officials\u00a0took a first step toward legalization in 2022<\/a>, kicking off a series of hearings meant to help inform legislation to end prohibition in the country.<\/p>\n Government officials from multiple countries, including the U.S., also met in Germany last November to\u00a0discuss international marijuana policy issues<\/a>\u00a0as the host nation works to enact legalization.<\/p>\n A group of German lawmakers, as well as Narcotics Drugs Commissioner Burkhard Blienert, separately\u00a0visited the U.S. and toured California cannabis businesses<\/a>\u00a0in 2022 to inform their country\u2019s approach to legalization.<\/p>\n The visit came after top officials from Germany, Luxembourg, Malta and the Netherlands\u00a0held a first-of-its-kind meeting to discuss plans and challenges<\/a>\u00a0associated with recreational marijuana legalization.<\/p>\n Leaders of the coalition government said in 2021 that they had\u00a0reached an agreement to end cannabis prohibition<\/a>\u00a0and enact regulations for a legal industry, and they first\u00a0previewed certain details of that plan<\/a>\u00a0last year.<\/p>\n A novel international survey that was released last year\u00a0found majority support for legalization<\/a>\u00a0in several key European countries, including Germany.<\/p>\n New York Lawmakers Say Bill To Legalize Psilocybin-Assisted Therapy Has A \u2018Real Chance\u2019 To Advance This Year<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n The post German Lawmakers Officially Put Marijuana Legalization Vote On Next Week\u2019s Agenda<\/a> appeared first on Marijuana Moment<\/a>.<\/p>\n
A bill to legalize marijuana in Germany is officially on the legislative agenda for next week, signaling that plans to enact the reform by April are on track. Advocates are cheering the development in the Bundestag, though the planned vote in the Finance Committee on Wednesday will need to beContinue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":458,"featured_media":72491,"comment_status":"false","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[18,81],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72490"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/458"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=72490"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72490\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":72492,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72490\/revisions\/72492"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/72491"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=72490"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=72490"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=72490"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
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\nRead More: German Lawmakers Officially Put Marijuana Legalization Vote On Next Week\u2019s Agenda<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"