The German Ministry of Health’s budget has been slashed by €1m in a bid to put pressure on health minister Karl Lauterbach to present a draft law for the legalisation of cannabis.
The decision to cut the funds, which would have been used for the ministry’s public relations work, came during deliberations on the federal budget at the request of parliamentary coalition groups the Social Democratic Party (SPD), the Greens (Bündnis 90/Die Grünen) and the Free Democratic Party (FDP). Since Lauterbach is an SPD member, this is also a pretty clear indicator of disagreement between the party and the executive.