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CSU Critiques Of Traffic Coalition Plan To Legalize Cannabis Meets Wide Mockery

Written by Marguerite Arnold on . Posted in Policy.

Germany Parliament

CSU leader Markus Söder and Federal Health Minister Karl Lauterbach trade barbs over current government drug policy – which goes viral on German Twitter

It all began so innocently. Markus Söder, the leader of the “opposition” to the current parties comprising the Traffic Light Coalition, threw a weighted barb at the government’s drug policy during the CDU party congress in Hanover last weekend. Söder claimed that the legalization of cannabis would automatically lead to the legalization of drugs such as crystal methamphetamine (a highly addictive and dangerous street drug).

There were two problems with the approach. The first is that one of the parties now making up the coalition government, the Greens, did call for the legalization of “party drugs,” specifically cocaine, ecstasy, and amphetamines – but not crystal meth – in August. This is, however, not in the platform of the Traffic Light Coalition – which is only planning to legalize cannabis. A draft bill is expected to be made public either at the end of this year or early in 2023.

The second however, no doubt prompted by the above inaccuracies, was that Söder mispronounced the name of the drug – and instead, referred to the drug as “crystal mett.”

And this set off a rapid fire, and often humorous response.

Social Media Mockery

It was not only Lauterbach who mocked the mispronouncement on Twitter. His response? “Despite the scathing criticism from Markus Söder that the legalization of cannabis promotes the use of Crystal-Mett, we will not slow down on the same. At least vegetarians will remain safe.” Lauterbach was making a pun connecting the mispronunciation of the name of the drug to the German word for a chopped raw meat spread, frequently served with onions on bread.

This in turn set off an imaginative interchange where German Twitter users posted multiple pictures of what a “meat drug” might look like – or how it might be consumed.

This particularly imaginative response showing an addict applying heat to a spoonful of the referenced meat spread and then injecting it directly into his veins is entitled “The really hard stuff.”

The responses – both from the Health Minister and the Twitterverse seem to reflect the fact that Germans are rapidly warming to the idea of recreational cannabis reform – especially as the majority of the country is behind medical use.

This is a very good sign for the passage of full cannabis legalization sometime in the next 18-24 months aus Deutschland.

Germany