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Germany legalises cannabis, but makes it hard to buy
(www.bbc.co.uk)
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this post was submitted on 23 Feb 2024
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I had a very quick look at the law. It's a first step. Better than nothing and long overdue. I'm thankful but the law itself seems to be in part contradictory.
I.e.: I'm allowed to grow three cannabis plants. Sounds good? I'm additionally not allowed to own more than 50 grams of cannabis plant material (buds, leafs and stem). How should i even grow a single cannabis plant without making myself culpable?
I guess we'll have to wait and see how these contradictions are handled by the courts.
50g ate the dry weight. You are allowed to posses 3 plants + 50g consume ready product. So, this should work out just nice with smaller plants
Sure. As long as the 3 plants are alive:
§ 3, Abs 2 CanG reads:
https://dserver.bundestag.de/btd/20/104/2010426.pdf
Translated by Google:
That is 3 plants that are alive(!). If I'm harvesting or the plant dies of other causes, the plant is no longer alive and I'm suddenly in the possession of much more than the 50 grams allowed by law (and the whole plant counts, not just the buds).
I mean in practice the key question will be, whether "my neighbour grows weed, i've seen a plant in the window" will still be probable cause for a search warrant or not.
If it won't be, then you'd be good realistically.
In that case, you’d be obliged to dispose of it quickly. Burning it is probably the safest option.
That is a non issue in my opinion. As long as it is not dryied yet you can process it. Just cook it out for example. Or use it as fertilizer.
The law doesn't make a distinction between dried or not dried. This is only used for measurement. It only distinguishes between alive and dead.
It's still a dead cannabis plant.
This law makes no sense in this regard. Allowing three plants just so you have to destroy two an a half of them.
And at one point in time you will be in possession of an illegal amount of cannabis. Even if it is for a short period of time. Sure, you probably won't be caught but it still seems to be illegal according to CanG
Seriously: a plant takes around 8 weeks to bloom, and can stay in that state for another 8 weeks. That is plentiful time to harvest and not all at once. Also, while the first one is blooming you can grow number two.
As someone who growed stuff at home in the past, it makes perfect sense to me.
With 3 plants you have always one blooming and two following. Time it correctly and you have a constant flow of supply without ever having more then 50g of dryied products.
After you are done harvesting, dispose the rest of the plant and be fine. As the stem of cannabis is mostly water, it will not weight anything near 25 g if dryied. If it does, your plants are larger, and I think this may be intentional to limit the amount of products that can be harvested. Over all, while not perfect, the law is much better then many seem to want give credit for.
I was co author of the largest pro canabis petition ever in Germany, and the author of the anti-alcohol petition (reusing the arguments of the lawmakers why canabis can not be legalized, and just replaced alcohol with canabis). I am fighting for this since 20 years. And this is a huge step forward. Yes, it is limited. But the limit is imposed by the EU and not the German government.
It's still a bit concerning that we don't have clear guidelines on how growing and harvesting these plants will be enforced with this very low limit. If someone grows 1 plant and doesn't smoke the harvest quickly enough they might have say 300g of harvest and they suddenly go from legal while it's growing to illegal 2 days later. If you're in a state where they might want to be stricter on growing this could be a real problem.
Having limits on grams carried in public whilst not part of a cannabis club makes sense to me, but this restriction on quantities at home when you are home growing doesn't.
The new law does not allow you to pass our weed on. This I a crucial part on the crackdown on the black market. It is a little bit to strict IMHO, but I can understand why.
Limiting the amount you may own at home limited has the same goal. And if you let your plant grow that much, that is kinda suspicious.
You could just deal from home.
In the next weeks, organizations that fought for legalization will provide courses and information on how to obey those limits.
I agree that limiting the amount you can have personally makes sense. 50g is just way too little I think. A very normal sized plant in a standard pot will easily produce significantly more than 50g of bud.
There definitely needs to be a limit. Not letting people have more than a kg for example 100% makes sense. Letting people grow their own is a fantastic way to cut out the black market. But we need to make sure that people who are growing their own don't need to fret so much about staying under a very low gram limit. If people like me are worried about accidentally letting the plant grow so it produces 51g of dried material then I'm less likely to do it myself and will acquire it another way.
If the limit is say 200g then you could comfortably grow one plant in a normal sized pot. Harvest it. And be under the limit without stress, and not need to buy any for a whole year until you grow more the next year. No need to buy from a black market then.
I would love to just harvest once a year and grow white widow for example. But this s3ems not possible exactly for the reasons you mentioned.
That sucks, yes, but I can understand why. Is the law good? It is good enough. Will it need refinement? Yes, a lot.
They are walking a thin line. And if they overstep the EU could reverse that whole thing.
So, let's run with it, and are what happens
Oh yeah it's definitely a great start and I don't want to let perfect be the enemy of good enough. Hopefully it all goes well and further liberalisation can follow, along with changes to treaties to expand even further. I was just a bit shocked when I saw the low amount you can have at home.
Theoretically, if two adults lived at home would the limit be 100g? That might make things less stressful.
Yes, the limit is per adult in a household
The law does make sense, if you put it into practice. In practice the dry weight amounts will probably just be checked on the street. Checking your home will require a warrant which isn't easy to come by, so they're not gonna bother about cases where it might be three or four plants or this or that many grams.
I think I'm going to need John Travolta to explain this one to me.