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- WORLD, Page 43World NotesGERMANYThe Right to Get High
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- Germany found itself mired in the increasingly heated European
- debate over drug legalization last week when an appellate judge
- in Lubeck declared the country's laws against marijuana and
- hashish unconstitutional. In a ruling that must now be tested in
- the nation's highest court, Judge Wolfgang Neskovic overturned
- the conviction of a woman who had been caught hiding 1.2 grams
- of hashish in her sock.
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- The surprise decision seems destined to further distance
- the ruling Christian Democrats, who seek stricter enforcement
- of antidrug laws, from the opposition Social Democrats, who
- appear inclined to support drug-legalization proposals that
- would make Germany more like the Netherlands, where 2,000
- coffeehouses openly sell marijuana and hashish. Ruled Neskovic:
- "Intoxication, like eating, drinking and sex, is one of the
- fundamentals of mankind." The judge himself confessed to
- preferring seltzer water to cannabis.
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