The traffic light government has now set out its plans for the long-announced legalization of cannabis, which were already mentioned in the cornerstone papers of the coalition agreement at the end of 2021. In the future, it is to be legal to grow up to three cannabis plants of one's own via so-called "cannabis clubs" with a maximum of 500 members and to obtain up to 25 grams of cannabis per day and a maximum of 50 grams per month there. At a later date, sales via regional specialized stores and commercial supply chains will also be pushed.
Even though the coalition agreement envisaged even more extensive legalization, it nevertheless continues to serve its purpose of buying in especially the sections of the youth that gave the Greens in particular their way into government and distracting the public from the real problems and various machinations of the ruling class. In the midst of the developing economic crisis and a continuing rise in consumer prices for food, energy and clothing, this "legalization light" of the government is a means to keep parts of its voters quiet with breadcrumbs and supposedly progressive prestige projects.
Another aspect of legalization is the issue of resource redistribution in police law enforcement. Lauterbach states at the press conference on the legalization plans that since 2010, the number of drug-related offenses has steadily increased. In the area of cannabis alone, the number of drug-related offenses, nationwide has increased by 24.78% since 2014 with 161,040 to 214,100 in 2021. Offenses whose criminal prosecution all cost a lot of "manpower" and mean a large bureaucratic effort, both in controls on the streets and in the investigations by police and prosecutors and make the courts additional work. Legalization also frees up places in prisons, which are often overcrowded. The resources freed up in the investigative authorities can then be used, in times of economic crisis and intensifying class contradictions, to increase repression against all those who stand in opposition to the government and the militarization and price increases it is pushing.
Additionally, the legalization of cannabis is also a lucrative business for the bourgeois state. A study from 2022 on the "Fiscal Impact of Cannabis Legalization in Germany" indicates that the state could collect billions annually through the legalization of cannabis. For the police alone, 1.1 billion can be saved, in addition to combined tax income of 2.8 billion euros.
It remains to be emphasized that the legalization plans of the traffic light government in no way testify to any "progressiveness" on their own behalf. It is mainly the attempt to satisfy especially the young voter base of the Greens after many broken election promises like in Lützerath, with the partial legalization and to stun the masses in general with the easier access to drugs and to keep them from rebelling. If the masses then rebel anyway, as they did on New Year's Eve, the police and judiciary then await them with freed-up resources.
