The Story

Germany is planning to legalise weed… but only if the EU agrees.

Health Minister Karl Lauterbach essentially admitted that the decision is not in his hands when he presented the Eckpunkte of his new law on Wednesday. He had passed on the plans to the European Commission, he said, adding that stoners around the country would now have to wait for the EC to deliberate the matter. If the bureaucrats in Brussels speak out clearly against the plan, then the government wouldn’t pursue it any further.

According to an assessment by the Bundestag’s non-partisan wissenschaftliche Dienst is anything to go by, the EC is not going to consent. Legalising cannabis would breach at least two central EU treaties, the Bundestag lawyers found. As a member of Schengen, Germany has committed itself to the prohibition of a long list of narcotics - including cannabis - so that they can’t be smuggled across the Schengen area’s uncontrolled borders.

Anyone who believes th…