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Narcotic Drugs Act

German federal act/law

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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionAug 17, 2025
Entity authorityQ850716 ↗
Source-derived summary

The Narcotic Drugs Act (German: Betäubungsmittelgesetz, pronounced [bəˈtɔɪ̯bʊŋsmɪtl̩ɡəˌzɛt͡s] or BtMG) is the controlled substances law of Germany. In common with the Misuse of Drugs Act of 1971 of the United Kingdom and Controlled Substances Acts of the US and Canada, it is a consolidation of prior regulation and an implementation of treaty obligations under the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, Convention on Psychotropic Substances and other treaties.

The BtMG updated the German Opium Law 1929 and mirrors the Swiss BtMG and Austrian Suchtmittelgesetz.

The German Narcotics Act was re-announced on 1 March 1994. The last change to the law was the legalization of Cannabis in Germany on 1 April 2024. Since then, the handling of this drug has been subject to the German cannabis control bill.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Narcotic Drugs Act” is german federal act/law. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Narcotic, Drugs and German, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewMost valuable as an event-and-institution map that identifies actors, dates and record creators for deeper historical inquiry. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1971, 1929, 1994, 2024—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. For this dossier, Narcotic, Drugs and German is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “german federal act/law” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

The record creator and administrative purpose are central evidence, because official documentation reflects both action and institutional priorities. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 17, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q850716. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1971, 1929, 1994 and 2024.

Critical limits

Later summaries often reconcile disputed chronology or motive more neatly than the contemporary record permits. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Compare institutional narratives with records created by participants and affected communities. Dates and formal titles are useful anchors, but not substitutes for context.

Best used for
  • Event chronology
  • Institutional context
  • Locating named record creators
Verify next

Contemporary correspondence, government or organizational records, oral histories and cited historical scholarship.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Narcotic Drugs Act”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Narcotic Drugs Act primary sources, Narcotic Drugs Act archive and Narcotic research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Narcotic Drugs Act”?
  2. Who created the surviving record, and for what administrative purpose?
  3. Which voices are present, absent or mediated by the institution?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Narcotic Drugs Act” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.