The drug policy unexpectedly caused a stir at the federal party congress of the FDP.
The delegates surprisingly voted on Saturday with a clear majority for the decriminalization of all drugs - but they then reversed this decision under pressure from the party leadership.
If in the future everyone could consume any drug with impunity, "then we will have a huge problem in shaping our future viability," warned party vice-president Wolfgang Kubicki.
FDP leader Christian Lindner and General Secretary Volker Wissing also campaigned for the decision to be deleted.
Apparently, many delegates were unaware of the scope of their decision to liberalize drugs.
Their vote was based on a motion by the FDP district chairman of Berlin-Marzahn, Roman-Francesco Rogat.
It called for a “liberal drug policy based on the Portuguese model”, which relies on “more prevention instead of punishment”.
However, this “Portuguese model” was not explained in more detail in the application.
The party congress resolution, with which this demand was initially officially included in the election manifesto of the FDP, triggered the alarm among the party leaders.
"The Portuguese model means nothing more than the complete release of all drugs," said party vice-president Kubicki.
"This is something that the Free Democrats cannot approve of in any way."
Party leader Lindner justified his support for the withdrawal of the resolution by saying that opponents of the drug application could not have spoken in the digital debate due to technical problems.
The FDP federal party congress is taking place digitally for the first time, "which also requires a certain amount of generosity from all of us," said Lindner.
"Such a far-reaching decision" required a proper debate.
After that, a new vote would have to be taken.
Secretary General Wissing spoke of a "chance result".
This was also due to the fact that the conference presidium had initially inadvertently signaled approval to include the application in the election program.
The decision to liberalize drug policy was finally withdrawn by the party congress with 58 percent of the vote.
One delegate admitted in the previous debate: “Most of them did not really know what was being decided.” However, other delegates sharply criticized the fact that a decision that had already been made would be abandoned without further ado after the party leadership intervened.
"The decision that this party congress made five minutes ago should still apply after five minutes," said the former head of the Young Liberals, Lasse Becker.
In Portugal, possession of drugs for personal use is no longer regarded as a criminal offense, but as an administrative offense - such as wrong parking. This applies to the possession of a maximum of ten daily doses. The idea behind this is to decriminalize drug possession. However, drug trafficking remains a criminal offense. In terms of population, Portugal has the lowest number of drug deaths in the EU.