The first of April 2024 will now be considered a secret national holiday in the German stoner movement: After more than 40 years of oppression by the drinking, smoking and unhealthy calorie-consuming majority, their dream of legal cannabis has finally come true.
The hero of the hour is Karl Lauterbach, who bravely led the storming of the Bastille by the German bourgeoisie in a way that no drug-liberal, left-wing, green or stoned politician had ever dared to do.
Already at the beginning of Holy Week, the Social Democrat announced the good news of the victory of the revolution over “X”: “The fight was worth it, legalization of cannabis is coming on Easter Monday!” – Hallelujah, that calls for an Easter psalm: “People sing about it with joy Victory in the tents of the righteous: The right hand of the LORD prevails!” (Psalm 118:15).
Where did all the drugged people actually get their dope from?
The mood was correspondingly happy on the night of April 1st, when around 1,500 redeemed souls gathered in front of the Brandenburg Gate to smoke weed together. Under the eyes of public television and a contingent of friendly, grinning police officers, the thickest joints, the fattest bongs and the hottest pure pipes that had been seen in public up to that point were lit at twelve o’clock sharp. And where the LORD had sent good weather, it continued like this all week long, from the Berlin beach bars to the Monopteros meadow in the English Garden in Munich.
Now the holidays are over, the sweet smoke of the fireworks has disappeared – and now, at the latest, the disillusioned politicians and police officers should actually be asking themselves: Where did all the drugged people actually get the dope from?
The answer is simple and leads us straight into the grotesque abyss of Lauterbach’s cannabis law: The 1,500 stoners from the Brandenburg Gate and everyone else who is currently lighting up a hash pipe with a clear conscience are criminals – without any ifs or buts. Since home cultivation (limited to three plants) has only been permitted since the beginning of April, they can only have obtained the substance illegally, which is punishable by up to three years in prison under the Cannabis Act. If you purchase a “significant amount”, you can even face a five-year prison sentence.
“Decriminalization” of consumers looks different
Previously, 7.5 grams of the active ingredient THC was considered “not low”, corresponding to around 25 to 75 grams of grass or hashish. The Federal Court of Justice will have to decide at the next opportunity when the higher sentence will apply under the new law; A limit of 100 grams of THC is being discussed, corresponding to 400 grams of hashish with an active ingredient content of 25 percent. Until then, the happy consumers can only guess whether they will face three or five years in prison.
According to the law, the friendly police officers at the Brandenburg Gate should have at least recorded the personal details of the celebrants because of strong suspicions. According to Section 127 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, anyone who casually passes their joint on to their neighbor (which, according to a rumor, their name suggests), and thereby clearly violates the ban on passing it on, can even be temporarily arrested by anyone if their identity cannot be immediately established. “Decriminalization” of consumers – the stated main goal of the amendment – looks different.
The Health Minister’s pious wish and the bitter truth
The pious wish to stop acquisitive crime through the new law (Lauterbach on X: “Hopefully this is the beginning of the end for the black market today.”), will not be fulfilled in the future either. There are now reliable studies on the consequences of the release of cannabis from Uruguay, Canada and 18 US states, among others – with clear results: the number of users increases significantly as a result of the release, with adults being slightly more affected than young people.
As a result, hospital treatments and acute emergencies caused by chronic cannabis use are increasing significantly. Individual studies also found evidence of an increase in psychiatric illnesses among young people.
The new, legal procurement options mean that the (relative) proportion of illegally obtained drugs is decreasing. However, because consumption increases significantly overall as a result of legalization, the proportionate decline in the black market in total sales is not a success. As long as the cartels continue to get a healthy slice of the larger pie, they won’t starve.
With Markus Lanz, Lauterbach cited alleged studies from Canada, according to which the black market has “become two-thirds smaller” since cannabis was released there in 2018. Whether such a study really exists (I haven’t found one) remains to be seen – paper is known to be patient.
What is certain, however, is that reputable sources estimate the current share of the illegal market in Canada at 50 percent or more and emphasize that there is not yet enough data to quantify the effect of liberalization more precisely.
Marketing is everything, even in the black market
Lauterbach probably doesn’t want to deny that cannabis consumption increased significantly overall in Canada (as everywhere) after its release – but he didn’t mention this in “Lanz”. The management consultancy Deloitte Canada has just shown in an extensive study that the black market even partially benefits from the release. The Canadian Medical Association only noted in its October 2023 evaluation that there were fewer arrests and court cases, but apart from that it also gave the Canadian cannabis experiment a scathing verdict.
In other countries too, the black market share has leveled off at 40 to 60 percent following the release of cannabis, meaning that the international drug cartels continue to make an excellent living in view of the increased overall market volume. In doing so, they benefit from the social acceptance and the lower risk awareness among consumers through the release. The offer of “tested”, “clean” and state-certified drugs even has a free-riding effect on the dealers next door. The indication of the THC content has long since been adopted for illegal products – marketing is everything, even in the black market.
In addition, there is the new phenomenon of the so-called “gray market”: Cannabis from legal sources is passed on without authorization. This is likely to concern the police and judiciary in Germany from July this year at the latest, when state-mandated large-scale production begins in the “growing associations”.
The TCH content increases
And there is another worrying observation from countries where cannabis has been released: the average THC content of cannabis products – legal and illegal – increases after legalization. The reason for this is believed to be an unfavorable combination of high-tech and competition. Top products grown in the open air such as the “Black Afghan”, the “Yellow Lebanese”, the “Zero-Zero” from Morocco or the legendary “Thai Sticks” certainly have very high THC concentrations of 30 percent or more. But the harvests are usually stretched before they end up on the black market.
On the other hand, the state-mandated, domestic competition must offer tasty varieties with a high THC content in order to be able to keep up with the Grands Crus of southern provenance. For this purpose, the hemp plants are grown in greenhouses with artificial light under optimized conditions. Its dried flowers and leaves (marijuana) and the hashish obtained from pressed resin glands have comparatively high THC concentrations.
The THC content can be further increased with seeds of particularly potent varieties, by exclusively processing the flowers and leaves close to the flowers of female plants and by meticulously controlling the perfect ripening stage of the tiny resin glands. The black market, in turn, is responding with more potent strains that are less diluted or artificially laced with THC.
Politics repeats its mistakes
Legal and illegal providers benefit equally from the elimination of controls, social acceptance and the reduced risk awareness of potential consumers. As a result, there are three parallel markets (legal, gray, black) with a significantly increased sales volume overall. The Canadian company Curaleaf, the world‘s largest (legal) cannabis producer with a market value of 3.2 billion euros, has already announced that it will expand its European business due to German liberalization and even wants to check whether a secondary listing of its shares on a European stock exchange is worthwhile.
With the cannabis law, politicians are repeating the mistakes that have already been made with alcohol, tobacco and highly processed foods (including ready meals, sweets, burgers, fries, chips, etc.): they are allowing a sales market to grow for products that put a strain on the health system and particularly harm vulnerable or disadvantaged people.
The solution is even hidden in the cannabis law itself
It is no longer understandable that the federal government, the German Bundestag and the Bundesrat have waved through such an obviously nonsensical law. Our politicians should have at least read and taken heed of the current United Nations drug report, which summarizes the study results on the experimental legalization of cannabis and clearly opposes its release.
It is undisputed that harmless cannabis users must be decriminalized and the judiciary must be relieved of the flood of minor property crimes. However, this would also have been possible without increasing consumption, trivializing the drug and burdening society with another health problem. The solution is even hidden in the cannabis law itself: the acquisition and possession of cannabis is still prohibited for young people, but is not punished below an exemption limit. Whatever the police find, they still collect.
This could easily apply to adults too. A reasonable exemption limit would be, for example, 10 grams of hashish or 20 grams of marijuana and two live plants, regardless of the THC content. Then even the most stoned stoner would no longer be in danger of accidentally waking up behind bars.