The German Government presented this Wednesday a bill in which it proposes to take a step towards the legalization of cannabis usecreating possibilities for acquisition and legal cultivation within certain limits.

In a first step, the possibility of creating clubs of a maximum of 500 people to plant cannabis. Club members, who must be over 18 years of age, will be able to purchase a maximum of 50 grams per month and 25 grams per day.

Private cultivation of up to three plants will also be allowed. The project is based on the conviction that the policy based on the criminalization of consumption has failed.

“We did not create a problem, but we try to solve a problem. We know that with criminal law we do not get very far. We want to protect the youthwe want to combat the black market and drug-related crime,” Health Minister Karl Lauterbach said in an appearance before the press together with agriculture minister Cem Özdemir.

On the black market, Lauterbach said, they are frequently sold handled products that increase health risks.

“That’s something that we can’t keep accepting. That is why we are committed to a controlled supply of cannabis to adults with clear limits and prevention measures for young people,” Lauterbach said. In a second step, the government intends to create a pilot project that will enable legal supply chains that can be better controlled by the state.

“The intention is to develop a pilot project that can serve as the basis for a European policy on cannabis based on prevention and not on criminalization consumption,” Lauterbach said.

Özdemir, for his part, said that it was a complex problem not only because there is a very strong debate around it, but also because it touches on European law and international law.

In any case, added Özdemir, “cannabis use is a social reality, ignoring it does not delete it“. “The policy of criminalizing cannabis has failed for decades. It has not succeeded in driving people away from cannabis but has created a black market,” he added.

The project presented this Wednesday before the press is the result of a reworking of an original plan, after consultations with the European Commission, and the implementation of one of the plans established in the coalition agreement of the Social Democratic Party (SPD), the Greens and the Liberal Party (FDP).