Date: 30 Jul 1994 19:08:15 -0000
From: [Carl E  Olsen] at [commonlink.com] (Carl E. Olsen)
Subject: German Court Allows Possession
Newsgroups: alt.drugs

May 3, 1994
German Court Allows Possession
Of Small Amounts of Marijuana

By STEPHEN KINZER
Special to The New York Times
	BERLIN, May 2 -- Germany's highest court has touched off a national debate
by ruling that the possession of small amounts of marijuana and hashish
should no longer be subject to criminal penalties.
	Under the court ruling, which was handed down on Thursday, laws against the
substances remain on the books, and they are still technically illegal.  But
the police will no longer make arrests for possession.
	The judges voted 7 to 1 to allow the possession of cannabis products "in
small quantities and exclusively for occasional personal use."  Each state
will have the right to decide what amounts should be defined as small.

Opposition and Praise
	"We have to worry that young people will now perceive hashish as allowed,"
said Angela Merkel, the Government's Minister for Women and Youth.  "Many
people presume that what is allowed is also harmless."
	A senior Interior Ministry official, Eduard Lintner, said that "making a
distinction between soft and hard drugs is the wrong way to go."
	The principle German police union also condemned the ruling, saying, "If we
take this approach to every problem that poses difficulty to the criminal
justice system, then we should no longer penalize breaking and entering,
since we only solve between 8 and 14 percent of all house-breaks."
	But other political figures hailed the decision.  Kurt Waldmann, who
represents the drug-troubled city of Frankfurt in the Hesse state
legislature, called it "a brave step toward decriminalization of drugs."
	Leading members of the opposition Social Democratic Party also voiced
approval.
	"If small consumers are no longer punished, that will lower the level of
crime committed for money to buy drugs," said Edith Niehuis, a Social
Democratic member of Parliament.
	The decision ratifies what is already standard procedure in most of
Germany's 16 states.  Criminal penalties for marijuana and hashish are rare. 
In the northern state of Schleswig-Holstein, for example, the police are
under instructions to ignore the possession of up to 30 grams, or slightly
more than an ounce.
	The ruling last week, by the Federal Constitutional Court, was made on an
appeal by prosecutors of a 1992 decision by a judge in the Schleswig-Holstein
city of Lubeck.  The judge, Wolfgang Neskovic, declared all laws against
marijuana and hashish unconstitutional.  He asserted that the substances were
no more dangerous than legal intoxicants like alcohol.
	Judge Neskovic based his decision on a clause in the German Constitution
that guarantees all citizens equal protection under the law.  He said users
of cannabis products deserved the same protection as users of other
intoxicants.
	"The physical effects of cannabis use are relatively limited," Judge
Neskovic wrote in his 1992 decision.  He cited a German medical study
concluding that smoking one or two marijuana or hashish cigarettes was
harmless, "or at a minimum, less dangerous than the daily consumption of
alcohol or 20 cigarettes."
	According to Government estimates, there are about 8 million marijuana and
hashish users in this country of 80 million.
	Germany's newly loosened policy will not be as permissive as that of the
Netherlands, where marijuana and hashish may be purchased at more than 1,000
coffee shops through-out the country, or Poland or Spain, where possession of
the substances is legal although they may not be freely sold.

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