A new poll out of Germany is sending shockwaves through the cannabis industry since, for the first time, over 50 percent of Germans support cannabis legalization. Despite that good news, the recent collapse of the German government raises some concerns over the future of adult-use legalization.
“After three years of stagnation of approval of legalization just below 50 percent, a spectacular and surprising increase to 59 percent is now shown,” said the German hemp association, the Deutscher Hanfverband (DHV), according to a translation. That jump to 59 percent comes three years after the DHV saw support reach 49 percent for the first time. That huge increase is likely a result of the thriving growth of Germany’s medical cannabis market and the decriminalization efforts begun by the Traffic Light coalition led by Chancellor Olaf Scholz.
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A marijuana majority in Germany
Georg Wurth, a former Green Party politician and the Managing Director of the DHV, has been advocating to legalize cannabis in Germany for nearly three decades. Wurth reminisced, “That time around 2000, I guess we had public support for full legalization below 20 percent,” adding, “I’m very glad we finally have [a majority] after 28 years fighting.”
In addition to the polling done by the DHV, the Bloomwell Group (Bloomwell), one of the largest medical cannabis companies in Europe, has asked Germans about their use of cannabis and found some unexpected results.
“One of our polls showed 94 percent of consumers said they consumed cannabis for health-related issues,” reported Bloomwell’s CEO, Niklas Kouparanis, “That is why I agree with the reclassification of cannabis in Germany to be an Rx product with the same status as Ibuprofen, rather than a narcotic.”
Support for cannabis legalization stalls in the US while it surges abroad
Just a few months before the DHV found record support for adult-use cannabis legalization in Germany, Pew Research polled Americans and found a surprising result. Despite past polling by Gallup, showing “support for legalization averaged 67 percent among the general population,” Pew found in March of 2024 that only 57 percent of Americans felt cannabis should be legal for adult use. While an additional 32 percent supported medical cannabis, that is not the same as adult use. If Pew’s polling is not an outlier, it appears that support for adult-use legalization in the US is now 2 percent lower than it is in Germany.
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Both Kouparanis and Wurth had some skepticism over Pew’s poll results. Kouparanis was clear that “when it comes to the polls, it always depends on who you are asking,” adding that, due to how different the legal systems are, there is “no real comparison to what the polling found in Germany.” Wurth noted that support for legalization in Germany is “at record highs but still below most of the US polls other than this Pew poll.”
Germany is not trying to be another Netherlands
While many Americans immediately think of Amsterdam and the Netherlands when they think about cannabis in Europe, Germany is blazing their own trail, with some echoes of California’s Prop 215 days.
“Journalists and the German government often bring up the Netherlands, but they are not a good example of legalization,” said Kouparanis, “What they had in place was a grey area; it wasn’t decriminalized, but it was accepted.”
Rather than end illegal sales, that permissiveness strengthened the illicit market. According to Kouparanis, “The Netherlands is correcting course right now with pilot programs to legalize the supply chain, similar to Germany.”
“What we learned from the Netherlands was that decriminalization is a very big step forward,” said Wurth, “Everything is better than full-blown prohibition.” Unfortunately, as Wurth noted, there are some advantages that can only be realized by adult-use legalization. Decriminalization “does not get rid of the black market” or the untested cannabis that comes with it, and it is only possible to tax legal sales.
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The DHV’s regulation plan goes into greater detail about the specifics they would like to see, but a few of the main points Wurth brought up were legalized home grow, shops and online sales for adult-use purchases, balanced taxes, chances for small businesses to succeed, and the ability to use cannabis in public wherever tobacco is allowed.
At least for the time being, Germany’s medical cannabis legalization and decriminalization will be reminiscent of the early days of medical cannabis in California. Similar to the Golden State, Germany has numerous qualifying medical conditions, over 81 in total.
Another similarity is the social clubs, “nonprofits with only 500 members who all must be involved in the cultivation,” which Kouparanis described as “for the lovers of the plant.” Those social clubs are conceptually similar to the cooperatives in California’s Prop 215, like the Wo/Men’s Alliance for Medical Marijuana (WAMM) in Santa Cruz.
Some key changes between California and Germany are that pharmacies would be substituted for dispensaries, and patients get actual prescriptions from a doctor. That change allows cannabis to be consumed anywhere you can smoke cigarettes. Another big difference from those early days in California is the Internet. A patient using Bloomwell to receive their cannabis can get their prescription online, complete a survey to determine what product to use, and have it delivered directly to them from the pharmacy.
Political changes threaten legalization efforts in Germany and America
While Trump and many Republicans have shown intermittent support for cannabis legalization, Trump has also called for drug dealers to get the death penalty and intends to appoint notable drug warriors to his cabinet, such as Harmeet Dhillon. Given the mercurial nature of Trump and his ever-changing political views, it is anyone’s best guess as to how things go in the US.
In Germany, the Traffic Light coalition led by Chancellor Olaf Scholz was another victim of the wave of anti-incumbent sentiment that swept the globe in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. The Traffic Lights were named for the colors of the coalition, a combination of the Greens, the Social Democrats, and the Free Democrats. While the election isn’t until February, it is expected that the new coalition will be led by the conservative Christian Democrats (CDU). Other anticipated coalition members are the Social Democrats and Free Democrats from the Traffic Light coalition or possibly the Christian Social Union, who, like the CDU, want to “abolish” cannabis legalization.
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“I don’t expect a complete backroll to former times,” said Wurth, who noted that because the CDU will be the strongest party in the parliament and has repeatedly called for rolling legalization back, “there are concerns.” Despite the fears of conservative politicians, Wurth says that since April, “normal people are openly growing and smoking.” Rather than a rollback, what the people want are “proper rules” and “shops instead of criminals.”
“We are expecting a conservative shift in Germany,” said Kouparanis, but he also is expecting the new coalition will include at least one party from the old coalition, so a total rollback is unlikely. What is likely is a further watering down of decriminalization (which already isn’t as robust as the Traffic Lights had first hoped), and with the CDU at the helm, they may see tighter limits on possession and fewer pilot projects for adult-use legalization. Kouparanis was clear about one thing, “All parties agree that medical cannabis must be easier to access than when it was as a narcotic.”
*This article was submitted by a guest contributor. The author is solely responsible for the content.