Is Germany Legalising Cannabis

What is the Legal Situation in Germany?

 

Germany looks to be the first country in Europe to legalise cannabis and permit the recreational sale of cannabis, according to a coalition agreement for a new government that was made by 3 major parties this week.

Germany already has authorised legal cannabis for limited medicinal purposes. However, this is far too prohibitive in the vast majority of cases; other European countries such as the UK have followed suit in a majorly restricted way.

In Germany, the Centre-left Social Democrats, Green and Libertarian Free Democrats have confirmed acceptance of the plan to introduce legalisation during their four-year term to facilitate managed distribution of cannabis through specially licensed shops. After four years, the political parties plan to quantify this change in law's social impact. The coalition has largely struggled to agree, but there is one broad agenda that underpins their beliefs and that is the desire to be Germany's most progressive government in decades.

Over the years, industry experts and policymakers have demonstrated countless times that legalisation will shrink the prominence of black market activity (such as Canada after legalization), it will also reduce more problematic, hard drug addiction as cannabis has increasingly been cited as a major tool in reducing opiate addiction (a plight that has plagued the western world through over-prescribing potent painkillers). Moreover, cannabis taxes will be a significant stream of income as evidenced by the cannabis market in the USA growing incrementally as consumption tended to rise during covid lockdowns. The extra tax revenues and reduced police resources spent on prosecuting cannabis use could help provide

In Europe, the country with the most plentiful history associated with cannabis is the Netherlands, where the sale in coffee shops is tolerated but not formally legalised, meaning the shops are forced into sourcing the cannabis from illicit growers, even the supply chain bringing cannabis to the coffeeshops is fundamentally illegal. Contrastingly, Germany has the potential to create a fully legal and vertically integrated supply chain that could provide the future model for cannabis in Europe and push aside the dated model that Amsterdam follows or even the partially non-functional model that takes place in Barcelona.

The legalisation of cannabis is expected to bring annual tax revenues and save costs of around €4.7 billion and should create around 27,000 new jobs in a survey published by Reuters in mid-November 2021.

The European market is anticipated to grow by around €3.2 billion by 2025 up from 403 million euros at the end of 2021.

Stay tuned to Pure Sativa to see how the situation develops and hopefully we will see many more European & countries worldwide following suit!