Monheim's city council had to consider an application by a Cologne man who wanted to open a "club" in which cannabis would be grown and consumed — according to a report in the local paper, the Rheinische Post. Unsurprisingly, the council rejected the application.
Whether one is personally for or against the legalisation of, in particular, "soft" drugs is a question defence lawyers who also handle drug-related criminal cases get asked repeatedly. Honestly, I still don't have a final opinion on it. It is a difficult question:
Criminal law, in principle, sets the minimum framework for living together as a society. That is why the values and goods protected by criminal norms are usually protected with reference to other people. Those who steal, assault, defraud or evade taxes harm either other individuals or, at the very least, the public realm. The criminalisation of drug consumers is different. A person who takes drugs harms nobody else first — they harm themselves. In legal language this is called "self-responsible self-endangerment". It is, in principle, allowed. It is not forbidden to expose yourself to danger, as long as the danger materialises only for you.
For narcotics-related criminal law, the statutory protective purpose is therefore a different one: "public health". But is it my civic duty to keep myself healthy "for the public"? And if so, why is attempted suicide not punishable? The appeal to "public health" as a legitimate purpose of criminal sanctions has never convinced me personally. "Public health" unquestionably suffers greatly from the consequences of poor nutrition, alcohol abuse and other unhealthy lifestyles — without our having to see a "dealer" for beer, cigarettes or a Big Mac. Why does German criminal law treat the junkie who fetches his heroin differently from the alcoholic who buys three bottles of spirits and drinks himself to death?
In my view, narcotics-related criminal law is ultimately a product of cultural history. A multitude of different societies have each found a way of coping with one, or a limited selection, of drugs. For this, other drugs were condemned. The West has a cultural history of alcohol; South America has one of the coca leaf; in the South Pacific people have chewed the betel nut for thousands of years. It was only through globalisation that these drugs crossed social and territorial boundaries and reached societies that had not spent centuries learning how to handle them.
There is a legitimate social interest in protecting oneself from influences that can overwhelm a functioning social system. But that legitimate interest, in today's world, must also justify restricting the freedom of the individual to intoxicate themselves with substances other than the "traditional" ones. The burden of proof, really, lies on those who want to ban.