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When the delegates voted for the decriminalization of all drugs in Germany, the FDP leader Christian Lindner (center) reacted
Photo: Michael Kappeler / dpa
Proponents of a more liberal drug policy based on the Portuguese model failed at the digital FDP federal party conference after an intervention by the party leadership.
An amendment to the election manifesto with the aim of focusing on prevention rather than punishment based on the "Portuguese model" was initially approved on Saturday with 61 percent of the vote.
FDP Vice Wolfgang Kubicki then reported factual concerns and also pointed out that specialist politicians could not have spoken for technical reasons.
In Portugal, possession of drugs for personal use is no longer regarded as a criminal offense, but as an administrative offense - such as wrong parking.
This applies to the possession of a maximum of ten daily doses.
The idea behind this is to decriminalize drug possession.
However, drug trafficking remains a criminal offense.
"We all agree that the principle of prevention against repression applies to us, that we want to rule out criminal prosecution as far as possible for those who are drug addicts or for those who use light drugs," said Kubicki.
Party leadership intervenes
Party leader Christian Lindner called for such a far-reaching decision to be properly debated and not to try to use the rules of procedure to "create resolutions for the FDP that might have enormous implications for the perception of this party congress."
The party congress decided to have a brief debate.
Proponents of the Portuguese model referred to the successes of drug policy in the southern European country, which had the lowest number of drug deaths in the EU in terms of population.
Opponents of the proposal stated that if the FDP wanted to make possession of 10 daily doses of hard drugs possible for Germany as well, that would make the demand for a liberal drug policy altogether vulnerable.
Finally, with 58 percent of the vote, it was decided to delete the passage previously written into the election manifesto.
In the past, the FDP has already spoken out in favor of legalizing cannabis.
Most recently, the SPD had revised its program for the federal election on this point and announced a more relaxed course.
mjm / dpa