“Some German people drink their beer after work. We just want to smoke our weed.”
So says Marcel Ritschel who’s celebrating as Germany – traditionally “beer land” – becomes a more cannabis-friendly country.
Germany has, as of April 1, partly decriminalized marijuana use.
But police unions are warning of real-world harm. The law-change may have come on April Fool’s Day but for them it is no joke.
We meet Marcel Ritschel in the Neustadt area in Dresden, the heart of the city’s alternative scene.
Here, as in other places, it wasn’t hard to find people openly smoking joints even before the rules were relaxed.
That’s one of the arguments behind decriminalization; millions of people were smoking the stuff anyway.
It will help kill the black market and improve quality control – say supporters.