Bags for everyone
Who hasn't done it?
There could even be people among the authors of “The Situation in the Morning,” at least I can imagine.
Marijuana may even have been consumed in a variety of ways.
In tobacco, in pastries, in bongs (perhaps the most ignoble form of consumption, but effective, as we hear).
But that must have been a very, very long time ago.
For so long, no one said “Bubatz” or boastfully talked about “weed,” but simply about grass.
Cannabis should now become legal.
If the Bundestag votes on it today, everyone will be allowed to have three plants and carry 25 grams with them from now on.
Experts estimate that it can be used to roll 75 joints.
Growing associations should be created for all those who want to provide for themselves.
But that is not the big solution, as my colleague Milena Hassenkamp writes from the capital city office, but obviously the lowest common denominator that the coalition members were able to agree on.
Proponents hope that the “CanG,” as the law is abbreviated, will, among other things, decriminalize consumers and put dealers out of work, as Federal Justice Minister Marco Buschmannes once put it.
Critics fear that the opposite will happen and that the whole thing will be difficult to control.
So far it is only a bet that young people will smoke weed less because it is no longer forbidden and therefore uncool.
But will adults organize themselves into growing associations instead of going to their dealer?
It would have really made a difference, writes Milena, if cannabis had been available to buy in certified shops from now on.
That was also the coalition's request, but it apparently did not comply with current EU law.
Changing this takes time - and grass, as we know, stops growing when you pull on it.
More background here: Smoking weed, but evidence-based
Austria's child prodigy in the dock
As steep as his career was, the fall of the political prodigy Sebastian Kurz is just as deep.
The once youngest head of government in the world is on trial and awaits a verdict today: he is said to have lied to a parliamentary investigative committee.
At just 31, Kurz became Austrian chancellor for the first time in 2017, leading a coalition between his conservative ÖVP and the far-right FPÖ.
Then came the Ibiza affair: first Kurz's Vice Chancellor Heinz-Christian Strache fell in 2019 via a video published by SPIEGEL, among others, and then the coalition collapsed.
But Kurz survived and from then on formed a coalition with the Greens, always with the announcement: With me there is no “friendship economy” here, Austrian for felt and apparently widespread in the country's politics.
The public prosecutor's investigations suggest that the reality was different.
The proceedings, which are due to come to a conclusion today, concern the question of whether Kurz interfered in the appointment of his former political close friend Thomas Schmid to the board of the billion-dollar state holding company ÖBAG.
At least that's what Schmid's statement suggests.
This case alone is quite unsavory and the process is causing quite a stir in Austria.
But it is “rather small compared to what could come to Kurz,” says my colleague Walter Mayr, our Vienna correspondent.
There is still the so-called “advertising affair” in which Sebastian Kurz is being investigated: The Ministry of Finance is said to have placed advertisements in daily newspapers in 2016/2017 and received positive reports about Sebastian Kurz in return.
The senior official in the Ministry of Finance at the time: the same Thomas Schmid.
As the next step in his career, he now wants status as a key witness.
More background information here: How Austria is degenerating into a republic of affairs
Is Israel following the World Court?
Exactly four weeks ago, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague ordered that Israel must better protect the civilian population in Gaza and allow more aid deliveries.
The order of January 26 also states that the country must "submit to the Court within one month a report on all measures" taken "to give effect to this decision."
That time would be now.
According to the Hamas-controlled Ministry of Health, almost 30,000 people have been killed and almost two million displaced in the military operation in Gaza that Israel began as a result of the murderous attack by the terrorist organization Hamas on October 7th.
The ICJ decision followed a lawsuit by South Africa against Israel for violations of the Genocide Convention.
It also requests that Israel stop military operations immediately.
The genocide issue is likely to be negotiated for a long time; the court did not follow South Africa's demand for a stop to the military operation.
Nevertheless, the decision can be read as a “stop sign,” as my colleague Juliane von Mittelstaedt, who reports on Israel for us, wrote.
This sign says: This war cannot continue like this.
A insistence on international law.
Has Israel complied with the court's order since then?
Gaza is in ruins, there are hardly any safe refuges or secure access to medical care, water, food and electricity.
The World Food Program has just announced that it is pausing aid deliveries to northern Gaza, and the United Nations Coordinating Office for Humanitarian Aid writes that aid has "gone to its knees."
Experts warn that the number of deaths could rise further due to the catastrophic hygienic conditions and inadequately treated injuries.
More background here: A decision for humanity
Read the current SPIEGEL editorial here
More war does not bring more security:
Israel's actions against Gaza are becoming increasingly questionable.
The federal government should push for an end to the campaign.
Click here for the current daily quiz
The starting question today: Who is the FDP's top candidate for the 2024 European elections?
Winner of the day…
...is the artist Jeff Koons because he even supplies the universe with moons.
You wouldn't believe how difficult a moon landing like this still is, because the first person took his small step there more than 50 years ago.
Despite all the technology, despite all the knowledge, the trip to the moon is not guaranteed, and it wasn't guaranteed tonight, when Intuitive Machines was the first private company to successfully land on the moon.
It makes you feel really small again as a human being.
To remedy this rather uncomfortable feeling for humans, Jeff Koons found a practical solution: He created a sculpture, 125 mini-moons, and put them into the lunar lander.
Is this hubris or can it go away, you may ask.
This is just an artist's step towards a "universal" art, Koons would answer.
More background information here: “Odysseus” sets off – the first commercial moon landing in space history was successful
The latest reports from the night
USA is planning sanctions against 500 targets in Russia - and proceedings against oligarchs:
The attack on Ukraine is celebrating its second anniversary: To mark this occasion, the USA is tightening its punitive measures against Russian individuals and companies.
British seize 5.7 tons of cocaine on the way to Germany:
The investigators found what they were looking for in a container with bananas: British drug investigators confiscated almost six tons of cocaine in Southampton.
The destination of the record shipment was Hamburg.
"I was often portrayed as a crazy person who always demanded something outrageous":
Andrij Melnyk described the Chancellor as an "insulted liverwurst" and also happily dished it out in Berlin: The former German ambassador to Ukraine now looks back - and admits many mistakes .
I would particularly like to recommend this text to you today:
FDP minister puts the brakes on traffic light projects:
It's not just European projects that are stopped by the FDP at the last minute.
Combustion ban, supply chain law - out of consideration for the FDP, the federal government has recently not approved EU projects on several occasions that had actually already been agreed.
Now such a case also affects the federal government's human rights report.
Justice Minister Marco Buschmann apparently had it removed from the Bundestag's agenda, writes my colleague Christoph Schult, because it made positive reference to the planned supply chain legislation.
The deputy group leaders of all traffic light parties had already approved the report.
I wish you a good start to the day.
Yours, Özlem Topçu, deputy head of the foreign department