The European Union Drugs Agency (EUDA) is warning of a ‘sharp increase’ in unregulated cannabis being smuggled into Europe from North America. The agency reported that more than ten tons of cannabis originating from the United States were seized at the Cologne/Bonn Airport in 2025 alone.

“We are currently experiencing a flood of marijuana shipments from the USA,” said Jens Ahland from the Cologne Main Customs Office, according to original reporting by Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (translated from German to English). “We are being inundated with it; there’s no other way to put it.”

“In Europe, customs officials began encountering increasing numbers of airmail packages and even entire shipping containers full of cannabis from North America as early as 2023 and 2024.” the outlet also reported. “EUDA experts pointed out that seizures of marijuana from the USA and Canada had risen sharply again in 2025.”

Predictably, cannabis opponents are pouncing on the reported uptick in cannabis seizures by authorities, and trying to use it to advocate for implementing harsher penalties for cannabis activity where it is already illegal, and advocating for rolling back cannabis policies where laws have been modernized in recent years.

However, there is no meaningful evidence that cannabis prohibition policies eliminate cannabis use. Rather, prohibition policies ensure that demand is supplied by the unregulated market. After all, the EUDA’s own data demonstrates that cannabis use is very common across Europe, even in jurisdictions where recreational cannabis is completely prohibited, and medical use is limited.

The most effective way to combat illegal cannabis smuggling is to legalize domestic cannabis sales. Objective data proving that point can be found in smuggled cannabis seizure data between Mexico and the United States.

Historically, one of the most active parts of the world for illegal cannabis activity was along the border shared between the United States and Mexico. For many years, cannabis cultivated in Mexico and farther south in the hemisphere was smuggled into the United States, where it was then transported throughout the country. However, that has dramatically changed in recent decades.

Starting in 1996 with the legalization of medical cannabis in California, several states have passed medical cannabis reform measures in the U.S. that resulted in the spread of legal sales. There are now 40 states in the U.S. that have adopted medical cannabis legalization. Washington D.C. has also legalized medical cannabis, including sales.

The spread of legal cannabis commerce in the United States accelerated in 2012 with the passage of adult-use legalization measures in Colorado and Washington State, leading to a situation today in which two dozen states have adopted adult-use legalization, with many states currently allowing home cultivation to some degree in addition to permitting sales.

As legal cannabis commerce spread across the United States, demand for cannabis smuggled into the country from Mexico decreased exponentially. As of the end of 2022, U.S. Customs and Border Protection indicated that cannabis seized at ports of entry along the Mexico/U.S. border had decreased 98%.

“Cocaine and methamphetamine are increasing compared to 2023, while seizures of cannabis—which decreased precipitously after U.S. states started regulating its use—remain at a low level.” the Washington Office on Latin America wrote in 2024.

U.S. consumers clearly prefer to make legal purchases of domestically cultivated cannabis instead of buying unregulated, smuggled cannabis. The same would almost certainly prove to be true in Europe if lawmakers allowed a robust, regulated commerce system for medical and adult-use cannabis sales.

It isn’t a coincidence that unregulated cannabis from the U.S. is increasingly making its way to European markets, where cannabis is still prohibited. Demand for unregulated cannabis in the United States is dwindling due to the rise of the regulated market, and the supply is doing what it always does – it’s finding a way to meet prohibition-driven demand for unregulated cannabis.

If policymakers in Europe are truly sincere about combating illegal cannabis smuggling, they should be advocating for a sensibly regulated domestic cannabis commerce system instead of supporting prohibition. The data is clear regarding which policy approach works and which one does not.