With beer it is the seal of quality: the “Purity Law”.
Representatives of the cannabis industry have now proposed such a requirement for cannabis in the event of the planned legalization.
The cannabis industry industry association presented recommendations for this on Thursday.
Concrete quality requirements are formulated in a paper, such as standards for quality assurance in production facilities, specifications for packaging and storage of cannabis, limit values for impurities, heavy metals or pesticides and also a ban on extenders.
The proposals were created in cooperation with experts from cultivation, laboratory and food control, said the Vice President of the association, Dirk Heitepriem: "Only with the highest and controlled quality can we successfully push back the illegal market and thus achieve the goals of the federal government for health and safety Achieve youth protection.” The recommendations should help to establish a “purity law” for cannabis as a stimulant, it said.
Cannabis legalization is one of the major projects of the traffic light coalition.
In their coalition agreement, the SPD, the Greens and the FDP had agreed to make it possible for the drug to be sold “in a controlled manner to adults for consumption purposes in licensed shops”.
Cannabis is to be cultivated and sold under state regulation in Germany.
Growing a few plants yourself should also be allowed.
Proponents of legalization argue that the previous prohibition policy has not prevented use, instead there has even been an increase in consumption. In addition, state-monitored sales could improve youth and health protection through less contaminated cannabis and lower risk of overdose.
Crime could also be curbed and prevention programs could be financed with possible tax revenues from the sale.
EU could veto
Federal Minister of Health Karl Lauterbach (SPD) presented the first concrete ideas for implementation in autumn (key points).
The next step would be a finished bill.
This should be available by the end of March.
However, it is still unclear what will become of the project in the end.
It cannot be ruled out that the EU will veto the German plans in a so-called notification procedure (examination) if the Commission believes that they contradict EU and international law.
For example, in the "Schengen Implementation Agreement", the states of the Schengen area have committed themselves to "prohibiting the illegal export of narcotics of all kinds, including cannabis products, as well as the sale, procurement and delivery of these funds using administrative and criminal law means".
The federal government wants to convince the EU that legalization and strict regulation of the cannabis market takes better account of the concerns of the EU treaties on health and youth protection.
Lauterbach has commissioned an expert report from the Institute for Interdisciplinary Addiction and Drug Research (ISD) at the University Hospital Hamburg-Eppendorf in order to have good arguments at hand.
The CSU health expert Stephan Pilsinger calls the report, which costs almost 81,000 euros, a “useless waste of tax money”.
"The traffic light cannabis project was and is doomed to fail from the start," he told the German Press Agency.
Pilsinger had asked the Federal Ministry of Health about the costs of the report.
The editorial network Germany (RND) had first reported on it.
The topic of cannabis is a complete waste of time, Pilsinger said.
There are much more important construction sites in health policy.
The Union is against legalization.
The "Augsburger Allgemeine" reported a few days ago, citing the SPD legal expert Carmen Wegge, that the traffic light could possibly split its project because of the possible European legal hurdles: First, possession and consumption of cannabis could be made unpunishable, for which no consent from Brussels is necessary.
The more far-reaching part of the legalization of cultivation and trade could therefore come later.