Will Germany become Europe’s largest legal cannabis market?

The coalition governing Germany for the past two years has so far shown disagreement and internal quarrels on almost all the issues at the top of the country’s agenda: the fight against climate change, the budget and the deficit, and even matters of the future of the internal combustion engine or the speed limit on German highways. But there was one section on which there was no controversy, and which the government thoroughly promoted on the way to implementation – the cannabis reform. This was supposed to make the self-use of cannabis, its cultivation for self-use purposes and also its trade legal in Germany, and flow billions of euros from the black market into the pockets of the German government.

Two years after she was sworn in, and as was signed in the hundreds of pages of the coalition agreement between the three parties that make up the coalition – the social democrats, the greens and the liberals – the government announced in recent weeks that it intends to approve the law that will make recreational cannabis legal, and Germany the largest market in Europe His. The person who led the move, Minister of Health Karl Lauterbach, said about two weeks ago that the German legislation “received excellent feedback” from the European Commission, and estimated that the law would be submitted for approval to the parliament as early as the beginning of April.

Will cannabis be deleted from the drug ordinance?

But now different things are heard from the German government. It turns out that the issue of how to reconcile EU laws against drug trafficking with the national laws that Germany wants to change creates a legal recipe for trouble, which could delay the cannabis reform that was supposed to make Germany the only country in Europe where the cannabis trade is legal (in the Netherlands marijuana is illegal, but There is no enforcement in this matter). In recent days, Lauterbach has stated that the law will indeed be introduced soon, but that Germany will first be forced to carry out a “pilot” in six well-defined areas to examine the consequences of the change, which has already “opened the appetite” for cannabis growing and trading companies, from Germany and neighboring Switzerland to Israel.

The German law has not yet been introduced, but according to the draft presented last winter by the German government, it states that every resident over the age of 18 will be able to carry between 20 and 30 grams of cannabis or less, and the substance itself will no longer be considered a narcotic substance, meaning it will be deleted from the German drug ordinance. Every German will also be allowed to grow up to three plants at home for personal use. In the second phase of the reform, authorized stores and pharmacies will be able to freely sell products that include cannabis, not only for medical use, and the plan was to implement the plan gradually until mid-2024.

This is a monumental change not only for Germany, but for Europe as a whole, because it is the largest economy in the Union. One of the reasons for the move was economic: according to the calculations of the Liberal Party, which supported it during the coalition negotiations, the “laundering” of the cannabis business will bring in additional billions of euros for the country, which are now going to criminal organizations and those involved in its illegal distribution.

Making the field legal will create thousands of new jobs

According to surveys in the country, about 4 million people (5% of the total population) used cannabis in 2021. If we are talking about the young age group (18-24), the rate already rises to 25%. Other reasons for the law were to allow for increased supervision of the use of cannabis, help for those who are harmed as a result of it, information about the use of drugs and neutralizing their prohibited image, and also the reduction of organized crime and gang violence linked to its trade. A report by the University of Dusseldorf estimated that legalizing the field would create 27,000 new jobs and yield an additional 4.7 billion euros in tax revenue, and by avoiding policing and legal expenses. In the entire world, only a handful of countries have taken a similar step, such as Canada, Uruguay and some US states.

Those who were supposed to soon benefit from the market entry of millions of German consumers are licensed marijuana and cannabis suppliers. Switzerland, for example, prepared for this scenario and last year approved the export of medical marijuana. Even Israel with the growing cannabis business there could have been a supplier to Germany. Germany already approved the use of medical marijuana in 2017, but now it is about a new layer of users who will do it for recreational and pleasure purposes. The local industry estimated that after the approval between 400 and 800 tons of cannabis will be sold in Germany per year. A variety of companies such as Enua Pharma, Cansativa, Cantourage, Bloomwell have already announced their future entry into the market in the country.

But the announcement of the last few days destroyed the cards. Lauterbach announced that he is initially interested in implementing the reform in six “exemplary areas”. It is not clear if these will be in the cities themselves, or perhaps in rural areas. The cannabis producers demand clear answers from the government, and the public itself also wants to know if and when the promises of the past will come true. If the idea is to wait for the long-term results of what is being done in the sample areas, it is possible that another promise of the coalition leading Germany will be lost. When asked this week when the government is expected to present the new investigation, Lauterbach said: “Soon.”

The Social Democrats at the head of the coalition were clearer. “Comprehensive legalization is clearly impractical in the short term, due to a conflict with European laws,” the top party said this week. Other reports talked about the Germans being allowed to grow cannabis privately. Meanwhile, the reform to full legalization of cannabis in Germany, as promised in the coalition agreement, may be a matter of years, and not weeks as some of the country’s residents had hoped.