Germany’s Coalition Announces No Changes To CanG Law For Now
After months of speculation, the new German governing coalition announced today that it has agreed on what to do regarding the nation’s adult-use cannabis legalization law (CanG) and that the coalition has decided to keep legalization in place.
No changes to the law are reportedly being made right now, although future evaluations will occur as part of the coalition agreement. The new governing coalition is expected to revisit the topic when the results of ongoing evaluations become available in Q4 2025.
The coalition announcement comes after polling found little support for a CanG reversal. A recent YouGov poll has found that a minority (38%) of the nation’s citizens support reversing German adult-use cannabis legalization.
Additionally, according to the results of a Forsa survey commissioned by the KKH Kaufmännische Krankenkasse, 55% of surveyed Germans do not want to repeal the nation’s CanG adult-use legalization law. Only 36% of the Forsa survey respondents indicated that they want to repeal legalization, with the rest being undecided.
Various German organizations also expressed opposition to a CanG reversal. The New Association of Judges (NRV) in Germany recently expressed a positive conclusion regarding legalization and warned newly elected German lawmakers against reversing the CanG law.
“Rolling back the law would mean that the judiciary would have to pursue small consumers on a large scale again. This would mean there would be no time to take action against organized crime.” reported Deutschlandfunk in its local coverage.
“In addition, according to the NRV, the state faces high compensation payments in the event of withdrawal. If the cultivation and consumption of cannabis were to be completely banned again, this would amount to expropriation of the cannabis clubs, it was said. This would enable the clubs to make claims for compensation against the state. The investment in cannabis cultivation is high and the licenses are valid for seven years according to the law.” the outlet also stated.
The Institute for Competition Economics at the Heinrich Heine University in Duesseldorf previously conducted an analysis which found that adult-use legalization could yield as much as 1.3 billion euros per year in savings for Germany’s police and judicial system.
German pharmacist Florian Sedlmeier and other members of Germany’s pharmacy industry also publicly pushed back on the recent effort by cannabis opponents in Germany to reclassify cannabis as a narcotic drug in the European nation.
“Pharmacist Florian Sedlmeier warns against reclassifying medicinal cannabis as a narcotic drug (BtM). Such a step would increase the bureaucratic burden and make it more difficult to provide patients with rapid care, ” stated the German Cannabis Business Association (BvCW) in its recent newsletter, citing an article from apotheke-adhoc. “He considers the concern expressed by SPD Health Minister Clemens Hoch that medicinal cannabis can be ordered too easily online to be understandable, but stresses that pharmacies carefully check prescriptions and licenses.”
Starting on April 1st, 2024, adults in Germany can cultivate, possess, and consume personal amounts of cannabis. Additionally, as of July 1st, 2024, people can apply to start a cultivation association in Germany, with 133 associations being approved so far. Research-based pilot trials are also part of Germany’s legalization model, with over two dozen applications currently under review.
A major provision of the CanG law that remains unchanged pertains to how cannabis is classified in Germany. Part of the April 2024 cannabis policy modernization adoption involved removing cannabis from Germany’s Narcotics List.
The removal drastically improved safe access to medical cannabis in Germany, made the medical cannabis supply chain more efficient, and removed some of the barriers to medical cannabis research.
“The Cannabis Act has a very positive impact on patient care, so reversals should be prevented. Instead, the existing regulations should be better monitored.” Armin Prasch, Medical Cannabis Department Coordinator at BvCW, previously stated.
According to a recent report by the Bloomwell Group, prescriptions for medical cannabis in Germany increased by roughly 1,000% between March 2024 and December 2024. The report also found that prices for medical cannabis products are decreasing in Europe’s largest medical cannabis market.
During the first three full months following Germany’s enactment of the CanG adult-use legalization law (Q3 2024), legal medical cannabis imports increased by over 70% compared to the previous period.
(This is breaking news, and this article will be updated as further details of the coalition agreement are identified.)
