HOLLAND

A particular country, as you know it, is the Nederlands. Even if it is seen in the US as a kind of "marijuana-heaven", The Neds have no anarchic legal systems regarding soft drugs.

YES: private use and cultivation of marijuana leaf IS free. BUT the law says, however, that you can be prosecuted, and condemned to 1 month of jail, if you "possess" up to 30 grams of marijuana. In practise, if you possess an sell less than 5 grams you are not prosecuted.

What is legal and controlled is the commercialization scheme of coffee-shops. And in theory, cannabis consumption should be reserved to these places. And it is also illegal and fiercely condemned to sell even soft drugs outside of this scheme.

So, Holland is a safe country for basic smokers, but its law system has more to do with decriminalization than with full legalization.

FRANCE

Surely the most repressive country in the whole Western Europe regarding simple use and consumption of cannabis-based products. The prohibition is the law even if the Justice ministry has passed requirements to prosecutors not to jail someone for tiny amounts considered as for personal use.

But in practise, the French law system is so harch that it has even be condemned recently in the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.

The reason is as follow: the use of illicit drugs (of any nature) is a minor offense, up to 1 year in jail -- "minor", a question of speaking... --, while possession and trafic can lead to 20 years sentences, even life sentences -- according to the new Penal Code of 1994. But it happens that someone that is caught with tiny amounts of cannabis can easily prosecuted under the term of "detention of illicit drug with intent to trafficking by way of networked crime". And the Penal Code says that under this charge the police can keep you in custody for 4 days. Usually for a common crime even serious one the custody is fixed at 1 or 2 days. So the police have the power to impose this 4 days of custody (without the presence of their lawyer) for the possession of cannabis for personal use.

Says a French lawyer, Francis CABALLERO, that fights the prohibition for more than 20 years in France:

&laqno;A basic cannabis smoker can have his civil rights fooled, considered as a narco-trafficking criminal and be subject to police intimidation for 4 days without seeing a lawyer, while someone convicted for child pornography will have only a 24-hours custody with the right to see his lawyer after the 20th hour. That's how France is dealing with soft drugs.»

GERMANY

In April 29, 1994, the Federal Constitutional Court took a decision that could be considered as a step towards depenalization of cannabis use. In fact the court has only renounced to pronounce jail sentenses for use AND possession of small quantities (it is said exactly that the prosecution is "subject to "nolle persequi" by Landers' attorneys' of state).

These depenalization schemes were decided only under 3 conditions :

a) for "small amount" detained;

b) if the amount seized were for "irregular use";

c) and "when there is no "public interest" in prosecuting";

Since drug policy is decentralized in Germany, it is a matter of regions or Landers to decide what is a "small amount. It varies from 6 grams to 30 grams.

• Schleswig-Holstein: 30 g
  
• Hessen and Northrhine-Westfalia: 10 g - optional up to 30 g
  
• Hamburg: "the volume of one match-box" or 10 g
  
• Berlin, Bremen, Saarland: 10 g
  
• Bavaria, Baden-Wurttemberg: 6 g.

So there is a big tolerance for smokers since then. But you cannot buy cannabis seeds.