How ️Cannabis Can Save the German Economy Post-Corona 😚💨
The German economy was entering a period of depression at the end of 2019. Even without a surprising pandemic at the beginning of the year, the GDP growth in 2019 was 0.6%, the smallest since 2013. In the 3rd quarter of 2019, the German economy already shrank 0.2%, followed by a 0.1% increase in the next quarter.
To name a few causes:
- Deceleration of the car industry and the shadow of the Volkswagen scandal.
- The competition from China, which is consolidating and improving its industrial production capacity at a rapid pace.
- Trade wars waged by the United States regarding steel and aluminum.
- The Brexit political scandal, which represents a threat to the stability in the European Union and the Eurozone.
The pandemic tested processes, infrastructure, and systems to the maximum, making it evident that many services provided by governments worldwide need significant improvement. The United States showed that it lacks social programs for employees and patients, letting millions of people lose their jobs, and other millions go through this pandemic without healthcare. China and its dictatorship confirmed that the lack of freedom of its press and investigative agencies could lead to omissions in moments that require transparency. As a social democratic system, Germany demonstrated to be more prepared to handle disaster scenarios like a pandemic.
To name a few advantages:
- The Kurzarbeit system and the more regulated rights for employees in Germany prevent massive layouts in times of crisis. The heavy regulation requires the government to step in for emergencies and help faster.
- The mandatory healthcare system makes sure that everyone in the country has at least coverage to be saved in case of emergency, still not solves the problem of capacity, but prevents people from fearing going to the hospital and end up with disproportional debts.
- The Hartz IV program protects people from extreme poverty and homelessness in case they already lost everything else.
Some problems also became very evident in Germany during this pandemic:
- The healthcare system needs to be prepared for disasters and deal with spikes in emergencies and doctor consultations.
- The educations system needs to adapt to disruptions.
- The digital infrastructure and how the government interacts with its citizens need to be updated.
Facing an economy in recession expected to last at least until 2022. Various services to be improved, costing billions of euros, and no other alternative apparently besides printing more than a trillion euros as stimulus packs. The Central Bank has a strategy to push to create inflation and devaluate the currency to allow Europe to compete in the international market.
These actions and chain of events seem doomed to happen, but there is one action that can help the economy, save money, create jobs, and at the same time only propagates love and acceptance in society.
Cannabis is the most widely illicitly used substance worldwide and is produced in virtually every country on the planet. The 2013 World Drug Report estimated that it is used by 180.6 million people around the world or 3.9 per cent of the global population aged 15 to 64. — Transational Institute Amsterdam
Cannabis is one of the oldest cultivated crops, originating in the steppes of central Asia 12,000 thousand years ago. The plant was used to make clothes, shoes, sails, ropes, and early forms of paper. It is together with humans since we left the Stone Age and stopped being cavemen, entering the Neolith.
Around 2,000 BC, cannabis arrived in India through the Silk Road where it became part of spiritual rituals. The term "ganja" is derived from the Hindi word for cannabis. The ancient Hindu scripture Atharvaveda cites bhang as one of "five kingdoms of herbs … which release us from anxiety".
The Greeks made fun of the Scythians for getting high on the herb, as they, at the same time, used it for recreation and even more potent substances according to the Greek historian Herodotus which lived during 450 BC.
Our culture, religion, and tools have been influenced by cannabis. Here is a timeline of cannabis in Germany:
- 5500 BC: The oldest cannabis discovery in Europe near Eisenberg (Thüring)
- 2000 BC: Germanic coat made of the cannabis plant
- 565 AC: Grave dress of the Merovingian queen Adelgund in Paris made of fine cannabis linen
- around 800 AC: Charlemagne has a decree on linen manufacture; Unified processing of flax and hemp; both become a common raw material for linen fabric
- 1300–1350: Establishment of linen weaving guilds in Brandenburg
- 1390: Opening of the first paper mill in Nuremberg working with cannabis and flax rag paper
- 1455: Gutenberg prints the first Bible on cannabis paper
- 16th and 18th centuries: The colonies make Europe rich. Sailing ships, sails, rigging, and ropes made from cannabis
But, as we know well, it is almost impossible for a central character to not get caught in a plot twist as time goes by. As Napoleon leads the French campaign in Egypt and Syria in 1798, his troops started to hang out with the Egyptians which consumed hashish (a more potent, compressed, and processed form of the cannabis plant), since they were themselves into a prohibition of Alcohol due to Arab conquer and the arrival of Islam. As alcohol prohibition is still today a complete failure in Egypt 2021, so was the decision from Napoleon. As his troops came back home in 1801, they brought hash together with them to France.
And so it starts the cultural relationship between Europe and cannabis. Club des Hashischins was a Parisian club made up of intellectual figures like Victor Hugo, Alexandre Dumas, Charles Baudelaire, Eugène Délacroix, and Jacques-Joseph Moreau, which was a psychiatrist at the time and studied the effects of consuming the substance, volunteering himself as the test subject, to write the first book written by a doctor about cannabis.
If America accentuated something for the rest of the world during the last 4 years, is that unqualified and stupid leaders can make destructive decisions that reverberate across the world and through time. Importing those decisions is the worst that you can do for your own country. And that was what happened in multiple places around the world at different stages of our human history. Leaders making decisions that do not bring anything besides damage, normally blindsided by the consequences of their actions. Like the action of Ronald Regan on increasing the FBI budget from $8 million to $95 million to wage the "war on drugs", which influenced Germany to also prohibit even the medical and industrial use of it for 14 years, putting the plant together classified as a dangerous narcotic with no other possible use.
There was already enough money and effort spent fighting the wrong war against the wrong enemy. It is about that time to understand that no war is a good war. Humans will always search for forms of inebriating themselves, alleviate pain, escape their reality or experience distortions of it. It will be with alcohol, cigarettes, paracetamol, a dominatrix, a psychiatrist, or cough syrup as we can see in Nigeria's codeine epidemic. Drugs per se are not often the center of a problem, they are a manifestation of the circumstances that people find themselves in. Prohibition is no help to protect. No one that wanted to try cannabis, didn't smoke a joint because it could not find one. The access to the drugs is already there, nowadays with Telegram channels to sell drugs and taxis delivering drugs to your doorstep. It is in our biggest interest to start controlling the conversation over drugs as a society, instead of letting drug dealers, cartels, and clans dictate the narrative. Addiction should be treated as a disease and not as a crime. Remove the stigma over cannabis enables us to openly talk and create awareness for our children the same way we do campaigns against alcohol and tobacco.
Imagine the government says that no one can eat meat anymore. We have millions of people that eat meat, and they love meat. So an illegal market is formed, with shady hidden farms that produce meat in an obscure way. The meat reaches the customers without any label and control of the quality. But people still love meat, and they have traditions of eating meat during Christmas and other social gatherings, so they rather consume that than actually stop eating meat. Following the same analogy, the government in this case at the moment is basically saying: "I don't care where do you find that meat, as long as I get you with only one steak to eat (15 grams in Berlin), more than that and you will be in trouble!". It helps no one. Not the consumer, not the economy, not the children, no one.
The supply chain of cannabis should be regulated with certification authorities, ensuring that the product reaching the consumer has the minimum requirements to be supplied. Containing a list of substances in the package and warnings of its danger, because drugs are dangerous. We can make labels informing us that it is dangerous to operate machines and should not be consumed by minors. We can certify the producers, a "TÜV-geprüft" quality for the 180 million people around the world that consume it, so they can be certain that what they are consuming is not a drug dealer plastic bag with god-knows-what inside, but it provides the german quality that everyone looks for internationally.
The war on drugs tried to forcefully shut down the culture and rituals of society, and if possible going as far as eradicating an entire species of plants. A genoplanticide — a genocide against plants. But there is a way to change this, and help us to see the other side of this crisis with a positive ending.
Germany is dominated by two parties (CDU/CSU and SPD) that cannot see the potential and opportunities that can be generated by legalizing, destigmatizing, and regulating the cannabis market. The Green party already estimated in 2015 a tax of €6–7 per gram of cannabis could bring in €1–2 billion per year to state coffers, based on average street prices of €10–12 per gram. This is corroborated by California, which just reached $1 billion dollars in tax revenue collected in 2020 from the direct sales of cannabis alone. It represents thousands of people out of jail, more time for police to focus on finding the real illegal production of non-regulated products, and more money to educate our kids on the dangers of substance abuse.
The cannabis business is much bigger than $1–2 billion euros of taxes. The Green party is failing to demonstrate the potential of this market. Canopy Growth Corporation is already the largest cannabis corporation in the world. This is a Canadian company founded in 2013, which is now worth 440 billion Canadian dollars (286 billion euros). It employs more than 3 thousand people and exports to Germany as Spektrum Cannabis GmbH.
America seems to have silently stopped the war on drugs, and now has dispensaries — a place to buy cannabis products and smoking accessories — in the 5th Avenue in New York. MedMan Enterprises Inc is an American company, public-traded and evaluated at $1.65 billion dollars.
Germany with its know-how in the chemical and electrical industries can start generating billions of euros and employing thousands of people to start tackling new business opportunities created with the demand for cannabis across Europe. New university topics to be studied and researched. Beer brewers, cigarette manufacture, drinks & food, paper, multiple industries can benefit from new demand. But instead of seizing that business opportunity, the voters — the ones controlling the future of democracy — are not doing the job of electing the people that will make that change.
As an immigrant in Germany with only 6 years of residence, I still cannot vote in this country. Otherwise, I would vote for the Green party to lead this country forward as one of the two main government coalition parties. As my german wife is ready to do. The only thing I can do (I guess?! 🤷🏼♂️) in this social democracy is to use my freedom of speech to humbly ask Angela Merkel to read this:
Ms. Merkel, thank you for more than 15 years of leadership. You managed to keep many crazy men from destroying many lives, and at the same time helping others to construct a better future. Well done!
You were appointed Minister for Women and Youth in 1991, the year I was born in Brazil. I can tell you by my own experience that it would have been much better for me, my mother, and my community to grow up with less stigma towards drug addiction and more information to the kids in my community. I saw in RTL Zwei that there are a lot of people here in your country going through the same struggles 😉
You still have immense power and influence over society and your party. Before you leave your post as the »Mutti« of this land, you can do all of us one last favor. One that reconnects you with your incredible past as a physicist, that tries to clearly understand a problem and then provide an effective solution.
The laws for cannabis at the moment are completely bogus. The government doesn't profit but only spends money fighting the wrong enemy. Gather your courage one last time and trust this generation that is screaming to you what is the direction to go.
Legalize it … and don't criticize it. — Peter Tosh — Released on 1976
If you want to take a look at the references used to supplement the facts in this text, here are some links to go further:
Bloomberg — German Growth Outlook Dims on Waning Export Demand, Trade Spats — https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-10-02/german-institutes-slash-growth-forecast-amid-manufacturing-woes
BBC — German economic growth slowest for five years — https://www.bbc.com/news/business-46875113
Forbes — The European Central Bank Is Being Pushed To Create More Inflation — https://www.forbes.com/sites/rogerhuang/2020/09/22/the-european-central-bank-is-being-pushed-to-create-more-inflation/
Transnational Institute — The Rise and Decline of Cannabis Prohibition -https://www.tni.org/files/download/rise_and_decline_ch1.pdf
High on Design — https://gestalten.com/collections/design-fashion/products/high-on-design-cannabis-culture
VICE — Drinking Alcohol Is Always an Open Secret in Egypt — https://www.vice.com/en/article/4xbbqj/drinking-alcohol-is-always-an-open-secret-in-egypt
Marijuana Business Daily — Germany firmly rejects recreational marijuana legalization bill as hope fades for reform — https://mjbizdaily.com/germany-rejects-recreational-marijuana-legalization-bill/
Leave a clap if you liked it. That will motivate me to write more about other topics, the next post that I am writing is: Why I Love The Rundfunkbeitrag In Germany As An Immigrant.
