The propositions to the Chancellor were open to be voted for until April 15th. In an exciting finish, the hemp supporters overpaced the „Islam critics“ who had occupied the pole position for a long time. The proposition to legalize Cannabis for adults made the second place of a total of 6,386 submissions, with more than 152,000 favorable votes!
Maximilian Plenert and Georg Wurth of the DHV (Deutscher Hanf Verband = German Hemp Association), the authors of the successful proposition, criticize the deficient technical execution of the Dialogue on the Future. The credibility of the results suffers from the possibility for people to vote multiple times on the same proposal.
„We would have preferred a poll without opportunities to manipulate the voting. We’re convinced that in that case, we also would have made it to the top of the list.“, says Georg Wurth. „Of course there has also been multiple voting by some people in favor of our proposition. But the DHV never encouraged this practice, and always dismissed such suggestions.“
„The high number of over 5,000 comments on our proposition alone shows clearly, that the Cannabis topic is of massive interest to the citizens“, Maximilian Plenert adds.
This is seconded by the fact that this topic wasn’t suggested successfully for the first time by the DHV. In autumn 2011, Maximilian Plenert’s question concerning the legalization of Cannabis was voted to the sole lead by the internet users participating in Merkel’s first attempt at public participation via Youtube. Wurth made it to the top of all petitions submitted to the petition board with his petition in favor of decriminalizing cannabis users, with more than 31,000 votes. In this case, the users even had to register online, or write their name and address on signature lists, thus excluding manipulations. Also the 2,400 comments on the petition board’s website reveal the great interest of the citizens in this matter.
The media partly discredited the cannabis proposition on the Dialogue on the Future by mentioning it in the same breath with „weapons fanatics“ and „islam critics“, thus misrepresenting it as a suspicious proposition by some marginal group. During their appointment with Merkel at the Chancellor’s Office, Plenert and Wurth want to clarify that they are in fact representing a large part of the population with their demand. They see themselves and their demand in a line with the Global Commission on Drug Policy, whose prominent members, among them Javier Solana and Kofi Annan, urged for new ways in drug policy last year. Hardly a marginal group.
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original german text:
Cannabis-Legalisierung auf Platz 2 bei Merkels Zukunftsdialog
translation by frihet
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