Legalise it... just not like this!

Germany just ended its ban on the sale of cannabis. But there are serious doubts about whether the law is ambitious enough to beat the black market.

Photo by Budding . on Unsplash

Dear Reader,

There is no cogent argument left to be made against the legalisation of cannabis. 

That is not because the stoners have been right all along about it just being a harmless weed. On the contrary, it should be legalised because cannabis - and the gangs that control it - are becoming ever more dangerous.

Prohibition has been an unmitigated failure in Germany, as the following examples illustrate:

Crime syndicates have taken over the parks of Berlin and other cities, where their foot soldiers lurk around entrances and pester passers by with whispers of “hey man, weed, weed.”

Cannabis consumption has gone up in recent years, with the number of people who say they’ve tried the drug higher than in Portugal or Belgium, where it is decriminalised.

The potency of hashish in an unregulated market has more than doubled since 2008. This partly explains why the number of people landing in psychiatric wards due to cannabis-induced psychosis has risen sixfold si…