Rabat – Germany became, on Tuesday, the largest European country to legalize the consumption of cannabis purposes. In the wake of the news, thousands flocked to the streets of the capital Berlin in celebration.
Crowds filled Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate overnight celebrating the legalization of Cannabis by smoking joints in public. People were seen holding cannabis plant-shaped placards and banners that read “we don’t want to be offenders!”
British media the Daily Mail reports that by midnight, the public place was filled with thick clouds of smoke as hundreds of joints were lit at once.
Under the new law, adults aged 18 and more are allowed to carry up to 25 grams of dried cannabis and cultivate domestically up to three plants.
With this decision, Germany is joining a growing list of European countries that have legalized the use of cannabis recreationally. Malta and Luxembourg have both legalized cannabis in 2021 and 2023 respectively.
Around the world, more than 40 countries have legalized cannabis fully or partially for either medical use or recreational use.
Cannabis has been proven to have great potential in treating a wide range of health issues. Mounting evidence points out that medicinal cannabis is useful in treating epilepsy, multiple sclerosis, and symptoms associated with cancer and cancer treatment such as nausea, pain, and loss of appetite.
While the use of cannabis for medicinal purposes is largely uncontroversial, its recreational use is a different story. Activists argue that legalization of cannabis for recreational use will lower crime, and avoid unnecessary arrests that would otherwise tarnish the legal record of young people, leading to irreversible long-term damage over the possession of small amounts of the drug.
On the other end of the debate arguments, some worry that the legalization of recreational cannabis may lead to an uptick in addictions to the drug. Experts say that such a scenario will take a long time before manifesting.
Large national studies are done every year or every other year to collect data, so we already have a pretty good sense of the prevalence of cannabis use disorder.
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