German Pot Activists Push for Legalization By Planting Seeds Everywhere

And the stuff will grow anywhere

The university town of Göttingen is getting greener and greener. But not everyone is pleased: The new plants sprouting up in parks, planter boxes and gardens across the city aren't part of an official city-beautification project. They're part of a pro-marijuana protest.

In early June, a group calling itself "A Few Autonomous Flower Children" spread several kilograms of marijuana seeds throughout the city. Only now are the fruits of their labor beginning to emerge from the soil. "We can't set eyes on this useful and beautiful plant because it's absolutely forbidden in Germany to grow it," the group wrote in a letter claiming responsibility for the action. And they say that's not right.

Planting the seeds was a protest against Germany's "restrictive drug policies," the group said, arguing that it's incomprehensible "why cannabis, unlike alcohol, cannot be legally purchased." They called the absolute ban on the cultivation of marijuana plants—even ones with low levels of the psychoactive agent tetrahydrocannabinol (THC)—absurdly strict, and said their actions were a "sign against the demonization of cannabis." The group emphasizes that the strain of cannabis they planted across the city had low THC content.