A ”Recreational Cannabis Referendum“ For Germany?

A German constitutional law professor is proposing that Germany should change its Basic Law to allow Germans to tell the government to slow down on recreational cannabis reform.

The new traffic light coalition has said it will legalize recreational cannabis. However, many Germans still think this is a step too far, even though the parties who are currently administering the government all had pro-legalization platforms in the last national election.

One of them, a constitutional law professor by the name of Hermann Heußner, believes that instead of legalization by the government, the country should hold a referendum on the topic first.

There is only one small problem with this. There is no provision for such a referendum in the country’s constitution, or so-called “Basic Law.” If the government decided to hold such a referendum, it would also have to change Germany’s constitution first.

As delaying tactics go, this is certainly a novel idea that has not been utilized before.

The only problem is that this could push legalization of recreational cannabis back by years. Berlin, the nation’s capital, is a city-state and does have the ability to create referendums. Most recently, Berliners held a referendum to expropriate large real estate corporations.

However, using Berlin as an example in this instance is hardly helpful.

How To Proceed with Cannabis Legalization in Germany?

The reality is, as most people agree, that prohibition has failed just as spectacularly in Germany as everywhere else. The costs associated with literally policing the population, are high. Cannabis is the most widely used “illicit” drug in Europe. And Germany, just like everywhere else, can certainly use not only new kinds of jobs but the tax income that will certainly result in this kind of change.

The problem is that a majority of Germans still are not persuaded that full legalization is the answer. As late as December 2020, a national poll showed that Germans still did not want recreational cannabis reform. Even so, it became a large campaign issue and ended up creating a three-party government, all of whom are committed to recreational reform in some form – even if they are now putting it on the back burner to deal with more “pressing” issues like Covid and the Russian war with Ukraine.

In the meantime, patients continue to be prosecuted for being sick, and those who merely want to smoke a joint after work continue to fall into harm’s way if the police catch them with more than 6-15 grams of cannabis.

The saga continues. Stay tuned.