Reword and rewrite the following article in HTML, use a hip journalistic writing style and make the heading statements in H3 or bold font where necessary: More than a decade ago, my fitness coach and friend, Jenny, called me in distress. She had just been attacked and severely beaten by her ex-boyfriend, a member of a German police arrest unit. He had called her to return his apartment keys a few days after their breakup. She waited in the hallway outside his apartment, and he showed up drunk, fresh from Stuttgart’s massive October beer fest. He started to scream at her, then he began to beat her up. She was fit, in shape, tall, and in training to become a police officer, but she said the only thing she could do was to curl up in a ball, hoping to survive.
Neighbors called the police. Officers arrested him and searched his apartment, where they found a bag with one gram of cannabis in his safe when they took his service weapon. He immediately claimed the cannabis bag was hers.
Guess who faced the more severe consequences? The attacker received a mild disciplinary penalty. Jenny endured hair testing with a result in a “grey zone”; she nearly lost her career as a police officer in training before it even began. A drunk cop beats his girlfriend? Manageable. But the possession of a gram of cannabis? Almost career-ending.
Photo courtesy of Tim Foster via Unsplash.
Germany’s Partial Legalization is Working, But Conservatives Want it Gone
When Germany introduced the “Cannabis-Gesetz” (CanG) to partially legalize cannabis in April 2024, it faced criticism not only from conservatives but also from proponents of legalization, who argued it could not achieve its goals without a fully regulated adult-use market. The reform came in two phases: Pillar 1 legalized home cultivation and non-profit cannabis cultivation associations similar to cannabis social clubs in Spain, but without permission for a space for common consumption. Pillar 2 promised regional pilot programs for licensed retail sales.
However, after the progressive, social-liberal, and environmentalist “Traffic Light” government coalition collapsed, the new government, led by the conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) with the Social Democrats (SPD) as a partner, announced a legislative revision of the CanG. Conservatives seem determined to roll back what one of their leading figures dismissively calls a “shit law” and have proposed a restrictive amendment to outlaw telemedicine services for cannabis flowers. The final readings of this amendment are anticipated for spring 2026, with a final vote in the Bundestag expected in early 2026.
But here’s what the CDU doesn’t want you to know: the reform is working. The federal government’s first official assessment, the EKOCAN interim report published in October 2025, paints a picture that contradicts every doomsday prediction. The problem is, the system is only half-built. Home growing requires space and know-how many Germans lack, and cannabis associations are rolling out slowly due to licensing delays in conservative-led federal states. So far, thes
