Cannareporter Article: The legalization of cannabis in Germany seen through the eyes of the hacker who created an essential map of where you can now consume cannabis in Germany
Great piece from Cannreporter and great work from the hacker
A hacker from Koblenz, a city in the state of Rhineland-Palatinate, has created a map with the places where, from today, April 1, 2024, it is legal to consume cannabis in Germany. CannaReporter spoke to the programmer who developed the “BubatzKarte“, where prohibited areas are marked in red throughout Germany, as they are close to buildings such as schools, hospitals or playgrounds. Johannes (fictitious name, as he prefers to remain anonymous) said that “programming and creating this map was an interesting challenge”. In addition to the map, the hacker shared with us his view on legalization: “Drug laws are degrading and disempowering and have no place in a free society. Problematic cannabis use is a health problem that requires medical help, not police help.”
Johannes is “just a person who lives in Koblenz”, Germany, and who would like to maintain his privacy. “I’m just a hacker who loves free software, I love programming and creating this map was an interesting challenge,” he told CannaReporter.
The map was created in Johannes’ free time, who wanted to understand exactly what distances were mentioned in the law and what that would mean. “I had never created a map like this, so it ended up being an interesting project. Furthermore, at the time I created it, there were no other maps yet, something that has now changed. Our brains are heavily wired for visual recognition and visualizations are a natural fit for
data representation. For this type of data, a map is the first choice. So, anyone who wants to easily understand these rules will end up creating a map.”
The distances for prohibiting cannabis consumption in public spaces are displayed in red, but its developer leaves a warning: “The Bubatz map is based on public data from OpenStreetMap and may be incomplete. Everyone is responsible for their own actions”, he emphasizes.
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