Over the past week, various German media devices have tried to explain the Green member....Volker Beck....and his crystal meth episode in Berlin. Even some time on state-run TV has been devoted to the topic.
This morning, I read a piece from Focus (a German news magazine), which wanted to hype the idea of German politicians under stress and pressure.
It should be noted that Beck resigned from most aspects of leadership or authority....but is still a Green Party member, and still a Bundestag representative. The Green Party? It's odd....they have paraded various people around to condemn Beck but they haven't taken any real move to dismiss him from the party. My guess is that they want him to just walk away. Some people may feel sorry for him.....perhaps because they use crystal meth as well, or just feel eternally pressured with the job.
What cops will say about crystal meth is that it's being produced in actual labs in Czech. No production as far as they can see across Germany. They also say that it's a very small sales item at present. The bigger issue is that it's absolutely addictive. After one good weekend of usage....most people will say that it's a permanent addiction at that point. One might analyze part of this story and say that the purity of the lab stuff....rather than bathtub-like production in the US.....makes it slightly safer to use.
There's always been an alcohol-usage angle to the German Bundestag. That existed while it rested in Bonn, and I'll take a guess that it shifted very easily over to Berlin with the 'team' as they set up shop there.
The thing that amazes me is that about every six to eight weeks, there's an entire weekend where each party runs off to some hotel-resort, and has a 72-hour type political fest marathon....where you have to assume there's a fair amount of booze after 5PM each day. They waste the whole weekend this way, then show back up to work on Monday. Their brief reprieve is the summer vacation period where they get roughly an entire month off and no political chat.
How doped up or boozed up are Bundestag members on a daily basis? Unknown. I don't think anyone wants to drug-test or booze-test members either....because it might turn shocking to find forty-percent with something in their system which affects their judgement.
My guess is that after the mid-March state elections are wrapped up.....the Greens will call Beck into a room and just say that he's got a week to clear out his desk and resign from the party. Right now.....he's gone two weeks without a crystal meth hit, and he's probably on some treatment plan by a doctor but he'd really like some meth to help settle his nerves.
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