Cannabis optimism at Mary Jane Berlin

With more than 9,000 visitors, 100 exhibitors and a packed Conference programme with plenty of personalities, according to data provided by Mary Jane’s organization, last weekend Berlin has been in the spotlight of all of those Europeans interested in cannabis.

Companies from Germany and other European countries showed their artillery – rather the light one – while excited attendees satisfied their appetite for hemp with cannabis cakes, muffins, ice cream and beer. The former train station Postbahnhof – a space for various cultural events – served as the perfect location for the event. “It’s amazing, I think it is one of the fairs in which there are more listeners in the Conference program. There are people sitting in there for more than 5 hours and they not even have rolled a joint-”, obviously highly amused.

The program of lectures and discussions were attended by a large number of doctors and experts in medical cannabis. There were also talks about the hemp industry, and, of course, about policies focused on regularization and decriminalization. Among the more interesting proposals, the representative of the Berlin district of Kreuzberg, Monika Herrmann, defended the possibility of importing the Dutch Coffee Shop model in the Görlitzer Park area in front of a packed hall. Will we see it?

12 years after the last hemp fair was presented in the German capital – those who still remember it spoke of it as “a real disaster”, as it counted with the tiny figure of just 70 visitors – Berlin hosts a fair which aims to grow in numbers and importance, and is already planning another edition of Mary Jane in the year to come.

Optimistic air can certainly be felt in Germany, and it could thus be felt during the development of the event, due, in part, to the recent announcement by the Government on the next approval of the use of cannabis for therapeutic purposes. However, associations and consumers are demanding regulation of self-cultivation.

Cannabis-derived medicines are expensive and not all patients can access them with the same ease, agreed members of the Deutscher Hanfverband, Grüne Lunge, HanfParade organizers and patients with prescription for cannabis, which have to buy at a high price of about 15 Euro per gram from pharmacies. With justification, or not, all the participants with whom Kannabia had the opportunity to chat appeared quite convinced about a total or almost total opening with regard to German regulation in the near future; while the German Government’s did not point in that direction.