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MUNICH

Bavaria moves to ban cannabis at Oktoberfest and beer gardens

Germany may have legalised cannabis, but anyone hoping to enjoy a joint with their beer at this year's Oktoberfest may be disappointed.

Published: 17 April 2024 09:24 CEST
A sign at the Augustiner-Keller on Arnulfstrasse in Munich refers to the house rules, prohibiting the consumption of cannabis in any form.
A sign at the Augustiner-Keller on Arnulfstrasse in Munich refers to the house rules, prohibiting the consumption of cannabis in any form. Photo: picture alliance/dpa | Simon Sachseder

The southern state of Bavaria on Tuesday announced that it wants to ban the consumption of cannabis in beer gardens, at public festivals, on restaurant terraces and in some parks. 

The state government wants to “limit the public consumption of cannabis despite the federal government’s dangerous legalisation law”, according to a statement.

Clemens Baumgaertner, the head of the Oktoberfest, told the web.de news portal he specifically wants to make the festival a weed-free zone.

“A family festival like the (Oktoberfest) and cannabis consumption don’t go together,” he said.

Meanwhile, Bavaria state premier Markus Söder, of the CSU, tweeted that Bavaria was strengthening the protection of children and young people. 

“We will ban smoking weed in beer gardens and at public festivals,” he said. “In addition, local authorities will be able to prohibit smoking and vaping of cannabis products in public areas where large numbers of people regularly congregate, for example at tourist attractions, outdoor swimming pools and amusement parks.”

On April 1st, Germany became the largest EU nation to legalise recreational use of cannabis, despite fierce objections from opposition politicians and medical associations.

READ ALSO: What to know about Germany’s partial legalisation of cannabis

Under the first step in the much-debated new law, adults over 18 are now allowed to carry 25 grams of dried cannabis and cultivate up to three marijuana plants at home.

However, cannabis will remain banned for under-18s and within 100 metres of schools, kindergartens and playgrounds.

The changes leave Germany with some of the most liberal cannabis laws in Europe, alongside Malta and Luxembourg, which legalised recreational use in 2021 and 2023 respectively.

But under Germany’s federal system, each state retains a degree of freedom to decide how it will impose the rules.

Bavaria plans to amend the state Health Protection Act to limit how cannabis can be legally consumed. 

Politicians also plan a ban on consumption in the Englisher Garten, Hofgarten and Finanzgarten in Munich as well as the Hofgarten in Bayreuth.

The amended law is to be presented before the Whitsun holidays, which begin in mid-May this year. It is not yet clear when the law could be passed by the state parliament.

SPD legal expert in the Bavarian state parliament, Horst Arnold, criticised this  approach as “cannabis hysteria”.

With reporting by Rachel Loxton

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POLITICS

Scholz says attacks on deputies ‘threaten’ democracy

Leading politicians on Saturday condemned an attack on a European deputy with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz's party, after investigators said a political motive was suspected.

Published: 5 May 2024 08:34 CEST
Scholz says attacks on deputies 'threaten' democracy

Scholz denounced the attack as a “threat” to democracy and the European Union’s foreign policy chief Josep Borrell also sounded the alarm.

Police said four unknown attackers beat up Matthias Ecke, an MEP for the Social Democratic Party (SPD), as he put up EU election posters in the eastern city of Dresden on Friday night.

Ecke, 41, was “seriously injured” and required an operation after the attack, his party said. Police confirmed he needed hospital treatment.

“Democracy is threatened by this kind of act,” Scholz told a congress of European socialist parties in Berlin, saying such attacks result from “discourse, the atmosphere created from pitting people against each other”.

“We must never accept such acts of violence… we must oppose it together.”

Borrell, posting on X, formerly Twitter, also condemned the attack.

“We’re witnessing unacceptable episodes of harassment against political representatives and growing far-right extremism that reminds us of dark times of the past,” he wrote.

“It cannot be tolerated nor underestimated. We must all defend democracy.”

The investigation is being led by the state protection services, highlighting the political link suspected by police.

“If an attack with a political motive… is confirmed just a few weeks from the European elections, this serious act of violence would also be a serious act against democracy,” Interior Minister Nancy Faeser said in a statement.

This would be “a new dimension of anti-democratic violence”, she added.

Series of attacks

Ecke, who is head of the SPD’s EU election list in the Saxony region, was just the latest political target to be attacked in Germany.

Police added that a 28-year-old man putting up posters for the Greens had earlier been “punched” and “kicked” in the same Dresden street. The same attackers were suspected.

Faeser said “extremists and populists are stirring up a climate of increasing violence”.

The SPD highlighted the role of the far-right “AfD party and other right-wing extremists” in increased tensions.

“Their supporters are now completely uninhibited and clearly view us democrats as game,” said Henning Homann and Kathrin Michel, regional SPD leaders.

Armin Schuster, interior minister in Saxony, where an important regional vote is due to be held in September, said 112 acts of political violence linked to the elections have been recorded there since the beginning of the year.

Of that number, 30 were directed against people holding political office of one kind or another.

“What is really worrying is the intensity with which these attacks are currently increasing,” he said on Saturday.

On Thursday two Greens deputies were abused while campaigning in Essen in western Germany and one was hit in the face, police said.

Last Saturday, dozens of demonstrators surrounded parliament deputy speaker Katrin Goering-Eckardt, also a Greens lawmaker, in her car in eastern Germany. Police reinforcements had to clear a route for her to get away.

According to provisional police figures, 2,790 crimes were committed against politicians in Germany in 2023, up from 1,806 the previous year, but less than the 2,840 recorded in 2021, when legislative elections took place.

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