PressRelease
January 28th, 2011
The German Hemp Association has managed to mobilize the largest number of supporters for an alternative drug politics in years with its petition “Decriminalize Cannabis Consumers” at the German Parliament.
Within six weeks 21,309 people registered at the website of the German Committee on Petitions and publicly signed in favor of the petition initiated by Georg Wurth, Speaker of the DHV. In addition to that, a yet unknown four-digit amount of signatures has been collected on paper and turned in to the Parliament. The collection of signatures in Germany and even worldwide will continue for the months to come, up until the end of the Petition procedure.
This is the official text of the Petition:
The German Parliament shall enact changes to the Narcotics Act, to consistently decriminalize consumption related cannabis offenses (possession, purchase and production of small amounts) in Germany.
Knowing that there are millions of cannabis consumers in Germany, and knowing about the results of a recently published representative survey executed by EMNID, in which the majority of the people were in favor of a more liberal approach concerning cannabis laws, one could have expected even higher numbers of signatures. One major reason given by many, who did not sign the petition even though they were in clear favor of it, was fear of law enforcement.
A state that cultivates a climate of fear to perform their basic democratic rights amongst its citizens gives itself a very poor testimonial.
The responsible politicians should listen up carefully to the fact, that people are afraid to sign a petition due to the fact, that they fear of ending up in a law enforcement data base and possibly become the victim of a house search. That way the cannabis prohibition does not only harm the individual, but also the democratic system as a whole.
Creative Commons Attribution