Hashing out a uniform marijuana law in the Deutschland

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from Der Spiegel:



Know Your Limit: Germany Seeks Uniform Law on Marijuana
In Berlin, you can carry 15 grams of marijuana. In Munich? Just six. To ease any confusion, German states are now trying to hash out possession regulations that would apply across the country.




The laws regarding cannabis possession in Germany are nothing if not confusing. It is illegal to possess or consume marijuana. Except that carrying a small amount for personal use has no criminal repercussions. But how much is okay? That depends on where you are. Each state has a different rule.

That, though, may soon change. Ralf Jäger, interior minister of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, said on Thursday that the 16 German states are now seeking to establish a single limit valid across the country. "We are prompting the ministers of justice to push for harmonization efforts, so that the legal status no longer varies from state to state," Jäger told the Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung at a conference of state interior ministers in Hanover this week.

Such a uniform ruling would come as a relief to many. Currently, people in the city-state of Berlin are allowed to carry 15 grams of cannabis, but just across the border in Brandenburg, the limit is just six grams, as it is for many other states. Still others have set the limit at 10 grams, roughly equivalent to a handful of marijuana.

Up or Down?

How exactly this standardization may ultimately play out remains to be seen. In November, Lower Saxony's justice minister at the time, Bernd Busemann of Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democratic Union, pushed to lower the limit to six grams throughout the country, a proposal that would likely encounter resistance in Berlin. ............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/german-states-consider-standardizing-marijuana-rules-a-901717.html

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