German Health Minister lays out next steps for cannabis legalisation

On a special episode of Germany’s popular satirical “Heute Show”, Karl Lauterbach admitted to having smoked weed and came out personally in favour of legalisation - having previously spoken out against it
The Local (Germany)
Wednesday, August 17, 2022

cannabis germany2The SPD Health Minister coming out for legalisation put an end to some rumours that he was being pushed into it by the socially liberal Free Democrats, who negotiated cannabis legalisation as a key part of their coalition agreement with the SDP and Greens to form the three-way “traffic light” government. Lauterbach emphasised that his legal team was working to make sure such an ambitious legalisation approach would be in line with EU law, but says he doesn’t anticipate any problems. The government will likely finish drafting its law to go before the Bundestag sometime before the end of this year, before finally coming into force in early 2023. But it could take longer than that to set up all the supporting infrastructure.