The Strange Politics Behind a Berlin Neighborhood's Plan to Legalize Pot Dealing

First Copenhagen, now Berlin. As a new wave of debate on Cannabis legalization sweeps across Northern Europe, the German capital has become the next city where pro- and anti-cannabis liberalization forces are going head to head. The Green Party's Monika Herrmann, who became mayor of the Central Berlin borough of Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg last month, recently announced that she wants to set up a coffeeshop selling weed and hash in her patch of the city. Using the word coffeeshop (as the German press has), perhaps shows up the current limits of the legalization lexicon, as Herrmann insists that what she has in mind will be nothing like the social hubs selling coffee and grass that Amsterdam is known for.

"No one would be standing there with a latte macchiato in one hand and a joint in the other," she told Spiegel magazine. What the mayor has in mind instead is a straightforward shop-style operation, with a minimum age for buyers, medically-trained staff and security guards and a location right next to the district’s main spot for street dealing.