Election programs generally have a short half-life.

The SPD, Greens and FDP will each have to say goodbye to their own projects if it actually comes to a traffic light coalition.

But the negotiating teams will probably quickly tick the points behind the points that they agreed on before the election.

One of them could be the release of cannabis: In their election manifestos, all three parties describe the current legal situation, according to which possession of cannabis is a criminal offense, as an abuse.

Kim Bjorn Becker

Editor in politics.

  • Follow I follow

Helene Bubrowski

Political correspondent in Berlin.

  • Follow I follow

"Bans and criminalization have not reduced consumption, they stand in the way of effective addiction prevention and protection of minors and tie up enormous resources in the judiciary and the police," says the SPD's program.

The Greens and the FDP argue that the black market must be stripped of the ground, the FDP also refers to the tax revenue from legal sales.

The two smaller parties propose selling in licensed specialty stores, the SPD wants to test a sale in model projects first.

Which path a new alliance could take will be the subject of further negotiations.

Federal patchwork quilt

So things could change in the government's drug policy. The word cannabis does not appear in the exploratory paper that the three parties presented on Friday - but the parties are pretty much in agreement on the matter anyway. There are currently up to five years imprisonment or fines for illicit cultivation, trafficking, acquisition and possession of cannabis. However, if it is a small amount for personal consumption, the law gives the public prosecutor the opportunity to refrain from prosecution.

According to a decision by the Federal Constitutional Court, this restriction is even required under constitutional law. But despite uniform laws, a federal patchwork quilt has emerged - each federal state decides for itself how much a small amount is: If you are caught with about eight grams of cannabis for personal consumption, you don't have to fear anything in Berlin and North Rhine-Westphalia, but in Bavaria and Hamburg .

From the point of view of Sebastian Fiedler, himself an investigator and until recently chairman of the Bund Deutscher Kriminalbeamter, there is another point in favor of decriminalization. The SPD politician, who has now moved into the Bundestag, pleaded on Deutschlandfunk for “glasses of criminal law” to be removed and for “health policy glasses” to be put on instead. Germany must invest much more in prevention and education, similar to what is practiced in Portugal.

The resources that this would free up in the judiciary and in law enforcement should be directed towards the fight against organized crime.

The Bund Deutscher Kriminalbeamter advocates transferring the use of cannabis to the regulatory offense law - with the result that authorities would not be obliged to investigate every user.

The German Lawyers' Association also pleads for decriminalization

and refers to the relief of the police and the judiciary.

A controlled delivery should be regulated by state-granted permits and controls.

Is cannabis really a "gateway drug"?

But there are also voices that warn against taking the step.

The federal chairman of the police union (GdP), Oliver Malchow, told the Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung that it would not make sense to open the door to another “dangerous and often trivialized” drug in addition to alcohol.

“It has to be an end to glossing over the joint.” Especially among young people, the consumption of cannabis can lead to considerable health problems and social conflicts.