Two years after Germany partially legalised cannabis, a government evaluation has found no significant short-term impact on public health, stable youth use, and a reduced black market—though police investigations have been “substantially restricted” by the reforms.
Adult-use cannabis was legalised in Germany just over 2 years ago on the 1st April 2024 in a piece of legislation known as the Consumer Cannabis Act (CanG). The new law allowed for the possession of cannabis, as well as cultivation at home and through cannabis cultivation associations. The law also updated the existing medicinal framework by categorising cannabis as a more standard medicine, allowing patients easier access to prescriptions, and removing unnecessary bureaucracy.
To understand the impact on society, a second annual report from a government-funded body, Evaluation des Konsumcannabisgesetzes (EKOCAN), was published this week. The 222-page report examined the effects of the Consumer Cannabis Act (CanG) on crime, public health, and the cannabis market, and will inform how policymakers operate the law going forward.
Since legalisation, Germany has become one of the largest cannabis markets in the world. There are currently between 700,000 and 1 million medical patients in the country, around 4.5 million adults who have used cannabis recreationally in the past 12 months, and a 300% increase in home cultivation. The country imported over 200 tonnes of medical cannabis in 2025, although domestic cultivation amounted to only about 5,000 kilograms. Despite this, there remains lingering discontent among politicians such as the conservative CDU party and the far-right AfD party, both of whom accuse the industry of functioning as pseudo drug dealers. in part by making prescriptions too easy to obtain through the telemedicine framework, as well as highlighting the various hurdles that have arisen since legalisation.
Impact on public health
The first EKOCAN analysis found that youth cannabis use had remained stable after the implementation of the CanG Act, and the report from this year found that trend to have continued. Cannabis use by adolescents before the act was initiated at an average age of 15-16 years, and around 10% reported ‘riskier’, or daily use.
In interviews and surveys, adolescents reported they used cannabis for various reasons, including boredom, to make them feel better physically, relaxation, and to help with mental health issues such as ADHD, depression and social anxiety.
Last year’s report found that since 2019, the number of young people who perceive cannabis to be harmful has been growing, and this has continued into 2025, despite legalisation. 70.6% of young people surveyed in 2025 said they considered cannabis to be ‘quite or very harmful’. The report theorised that one reason for this could be due to the amount of medical cannabis advertising, which often did not make clear that it was aimed at patients.
“The liberalization of the handling of medicinal cannabis in public spaces, particularly online, has led to heavy advertising for cannabis – often without clearly indicating that it is a medical product,” the report stated.
Cannabis-related health incidents such as emergency calls and hospitalisations were not found to have increased significantly, with the report concluding there was “no clear, short-term impact of the Cannabis Act on public health”.
The use of cannabis had stabilised amongst adults, although the slight uptick in use seen amongst males in 2024 was seen to continue along the same trend in 2025, and no changes were seen in the use of cannabis-related harm prevention services.
There was little to no change in the effect of CanG on the chronic use of other substances, or in the number of people killed or injured on the roads due to cannabis use.
“Furthermore, [the act] had no short-term effect on chronic substance use problems; however, there were indications of a slight increase in acute substance use problems in regionally limited data sources. No evidence was found of significant changes in the use of support services or in road safety, i.e., the total number of people injured or killed in road traffic. However, parallel to substance use, the number of accidents involving other substances, including cannabis, has been increasing for several years,” the report stated.
Impact on crime and policing
Police have been able to spend more time investigating more serious cannabis-related crime due to the offences of possession and home-cultivation being partially legalised, with the report finding a drop in the size of the black market. However, the report also found that in reality, the police’s investigational activities regarding cannabis had been ‘substantially restricted’. The authors of the report did stress that it was too early into cannabis reform for them to make solid conclusions on the effect of CanG on the black market.
“The focus of this second interim report is on the impact of partial legalization on cannabis-related organized crime. The question of how the Cannabis Act has affected (or will affect) cannabis-related organized crime is by no means trivial; moreover, it is clearly too early for a conclusive assessment only two years after the reform. This interim report therefore limits itself to developing a concise research program and presenting initial – preliminary – findings,” the report said.
Medical cannabis market
According to the report, Germany has experienced a massive increase in the size of their medical cannabis industry since the law was introduced; it stated that, “Germany has become the largest legal commercial cannabis market in Europe”.
Alongside the growth in the market came some teething problems and political interference, especially directed at the telemedicine model and how that has supposedly been exploited by ‘pseudo patients’, as well as concerns around the increasing availability of high-THC cannabis products.
Health Minister Nina Warken of the CDU complained of a “blurry boundary between cannabis for recreational consumption and cannabis for purely medicinal purposes.”
The final report on the impact of CanG will be published four years after the law was enacted, in April 2028. The findings will influence whether the government agrees with the CDU/CSU’s plan to abolish the legislation.
