Germany’s cannabis reforms were approved this week, overcoming the final legislative hurdle when the Bundesrat, Germany’s upper house, voted through the bill that passed with a huge majority in the Bundestag (lower house) last month. Germany is a significant addition to the growing list of countries defecting from the drug war consensus that had held for more than half a century. More than half a billion people now live in jurisdictions establishing legal adult access to cannabis for recreational use.
When Germany’s new law comes into force on 1 April, it will decriminalise possession of up to 25g of cannabis for personal use (and up to 50g in the home), allow requests to remove criminal records for past possession offences, legalise home growing of up to three cannabis plants for personal use, and establish a regulatory framework for not-for-profit associations within which cannabis can be grown and supplied to members.
When the cannabis reforms were initially announced by Germany’s coalition government in 2021, the plan was for a regulated commercial market more like Canada’s, established in 2018. A study has suggested that such a commercial market could create 27,000 jobs in Germany, and be worth €4.7bn annually in tax revenue and criminal justice savings. But these aspirations had to be reined in when it became clear that the commercial market originally envisaged would probably breach legal obligations under the UN drug conventions, as well as EU law.
Instead, Germany has opted for a form of “legalisation-lite” that provides channels for legal access via home growing or not-for-profit associations while, it hopes, avoiding the minefield of international law that a commercial market would have led to. A similar retrenchment has occurred with reforms in the Czech Republic and Luxembourg. All three countries have moderated their plans and essentially copied Malta, Europe’s unlikely cannabis reform pioneer, whose groundbreaking non-commercial home-grow and cannabis association model passed in 2021, becoming the blueprint for the new wave of EU reforms.
But while Malta has made clear that its not-for-profit model is a deliberate harm-reduction strategy to avoid risks of “big alcohol”-style over-commercialisation and corporate monopolies, Germany and other EU countries have unambiguously positioned their new models as a transitional step to a future of commercial retail, albeit more responsibly regulated. Germany has already announced that it will proceed with phase two of its cannabis plan, in the form of a time-limited retail “pilot study” in a number of cities. Like similar “experiments” under way in the Netherlands and Switzerland, it hopes to finesse the constraints of international law under the banner of “scientific research”.
But as the debate about the merits of different cannabis policy models plays out in a globe-spanning natural experiment, from 24 US states, Canada and Uruguay to South Africa, Mexico and parts of Australia, Germany’s move feels particularly consequential. More than 100 times the population of Malta or Luxembourg, and sitting at the heart of the European establishment, Germany has the economic and political influence to significantly reorient laws and thinking about drug policy in the EU and the wider international stage.
This influence is inevitably being felt in the UK as well. As longstanding arguments for reform move from theory into reality in respected neighbour states, they become harder to ignore and increasingly permeate the national consciousness. Why continue to waste billions on failed enforcement when we could generate billions in tax revenue like Colorado? Why drive 100% of cannabis users towards organised crime groups and street dealers, when about 70% of cannabis users in Canada buy their cannabis from licensed stores? Why should people have to buy dodgy street cannabis of unknown potency, when they can join a legal association and buy quality controlled products with mandated information on contents and risks, as in Malta or Germany? Why maintain policies that disproportionately criminalise Black people and overload our creaking criminal justice system, when we could redirect enforcement spending and tax revenue into community programmes benefiting those most affected by the “war on drugs”, as they do in New Jersey or Massachusetts?
Endorsement of responsible cannabis regulation is increasingly normalised and mainstream. It is no longer a radical position but a pragmatic one, with real-world examples to prove it. And while Labour and the Tories, with an election looming, lack the courage to move beyond tired “tough on drugs” posturing, public backing for legalisation continues its inexorable rise, with polling now indicating majority support. As support for a reform platform becomes a political asset rather than a political liability, positions long held in private by those in power will increasingly emerge in public.
With London’s support for cannabis legalisation topping 60%, for example, its mayor, Sadiq Khan, has started openly exploring reforms. In the absence of principled political leadership from the government, change may boil down to this cold political calculus. We are fast approaching the tipping point and Germany’s reforms can only add to the momentum.
Steve Rolles is the senior policy analyst for Transform Drug Policy Foundation.
