Prime Minister Markus Söder and consorts open the biggest drinking orgy in the world
A gloss by Sadhu van Hemp
"O'zapft is", announced Mayor Dieter Reiter (64) on Saturday at twelve o'clock sharp and handed the country's father Markus Söder (55) the first one-liter jar of Bavarian thin beer. And he was as happy as a child: "The Wiesn is the most important folk festival in the world. Thanks for the great atmosphere! Bavaria likes to host. Here's to a peaceful Wiesn!"
Responsible for keeping the “peace” is the Wiesnwache with 600 (!) selected female police officers who “voluntarily and with great enthusiasm” do their service to the drunk people. It is their heroic task to also ensure that the cannabis ban is observed and that visitors are spared the sight of completely drugged hash junkies. So if you get the idea of leaving the beer tent to get some fresh air, you can be sure that one of the 54 surveillance cameras is watching and the snoopers are already on the spot before the bag smolders.
There is no question that anyone who strays to the Munich Oktoberfest as a cannabis lover is likely to be in the wrong place. At the "Wiesn" you don't just chill, but strain body and soul. Above all, it's about bathing the brain in alcohol and letting the pig out at the same time. Thousands of the Gulping Woodpeckers and Schnapsthrushes squat tightly packed like fattened cattle in the beer tents, pour down liters of badly poured beer slop, eat vast amounts of half chicken from cage farming and roar in chorus "Layla“. The corona virus was also there: it's okay!
Once the Ballermann mood is at its peak, beer mugs and fists fly, the waitresses are groped, and beer corpses plundered by pickpockets pave the piss-soaked path to the puke mound behind the tents. The paramedics are on constant duty to provide first aid to those who do not survive the excess unscathed. At the last Oktoberfest in 2019, alcohol poisoning was the most common cause of treatment with 620 cases.
Yes, Master Söder, you are right, that is the Wiesn most important folk festival in the world - and at the same time Bavarian, if not all-German cultural assets. And drinking beer and schnapps until you drop is as much a part of it as amen in church. And yes, the fun is granted to the visitors! Let the plebs drink away their brains and reason - every little animal has its own pleasure.
What is irritating, however, is the double standard when it comes to drug use, which prevails in Bavaria and is clearly manifested at the Munich Oktoberfest. On the one hand, the hardest and most dangerous drug in the world is shamelessly praised, on the other hand, soft drugs such as cannabis are demonized and users are hunted down and punished like criminals. It seems downright perverse when the political celebrities of Bavaria lift the beer mugs in a media-effective way and at the same time babble about wanting to continue the cannabis prohibition in all its severity and mercilessness to protect young and old people until the day of Saint Never. The message from the alcohol fundamentalists is: just smash your beets until the emergency doctor arrives, but stay away from hashish and marijuana!
From the point of view of the cannabis community, it is truly a bitter pill that under a white and blue sky, those who have the say, of all people, who regard excessive alcohol consumption as at the "Wiesn" as a tradition and, based on this self-image, the enjoyment of cannabis and other psychoactive substances prohibited under threat of severe penalties. In terms of bigotry, this cannot be topped – and one can only hope that the day is not far off when Berlin imposes federal law on cannabis legalization on the Free State of Bavaria.
This content was originally published here.
