The current level of excitement and interest in Europe’s emerging legal cannabis market is remarkable in many ways, as is the interesting public policy model that has developed in Europe in recent years. Whereas current European Union agreements prohibit nationwide adult-use cannabis sales like what is found in Uruguay and Canada, the EU does permit research-based cannabis policies that focus on boosting public health outcomes.

The first European nation to adopt a national adult-use legalization measure was Malta in 2021. Malta’s legalization model is built on allowing adults to cultivate, possess, and consume a personal amount of cannabis in addition to permitting regulated cultivation associations to operate. Malta was followed by Luxembourg in 2023, with Luxembourg adopting a more restrictive model that only permits personal cultivation and possession.

Germany ushered in the next evolution in European cannabis legalization by adopting the historic CanG law in 2024. Germany’s two-pillared approach incorporates personal cultivation and possession freedoms, cultivation associations, and the launch of regional adult-use cannabis commerce pilot trials. The Netherlands and Switzerland also have pilot trials; however, adult-use activity outside of the parameters of the trials remains prohibited in those nations.

In the lead up to Germany adopting the CanG law, German policymakers pushed hard to get the European Union’s permission to let Germany adopt a more comprehensive sales model like what is in place in Canada. In many ways, Germany was not only lobbying on its own behalf, but also on behalf of other European nations that wish to follow in Germany’s policy modernization footsteps.

Unfortunately, the European Union refrained from granting permission for national recreational sales in Germany, thereby limiting the chances of success for Germany and other EU member nations in reaching their cannabis policy goals.

In my ongoing discussions with top European legal cannabis expert Peter Homberg of gunnercooke, he often points out that there are three goals of German cannabis policy modernization efforts. The three goals, which Mr. Homberg touched on in his keynote address on day 1 of the recent International Cannabis Business Conference in Berlin, also extend to other EU markets (paraphrased below):

1. To protect children.
2. To boost public health outcomes.
3. To hinder the unregulated market.

As I have previously stated, the first two items on the above list flow from the third, and success can only be achieved by recognizing the reality that consumers and patients are going to purchase and consume cannabis products, and they must be afforded the legal options to do so. Home cultivation will help alleviate consumer and patient reliance on unregulated sources to a degree, and the same is true for cultivation associations.

However, both of those components of current European legalization models can only go so far. Some amount of consumers and patients will still turn to the unregulated market, either because they do not have the means to cultivate their cannabis at home, or they do not have a sufficient cultivation association option in their area. Even if they do have the ability to cultivate cannabis at home and join a cultivation association, there will no doubt be times when they need to bridge a supply gap.

If they can’t make a legal purchase from a delivery service or brick and mortar, their only option is to turn to the unregulated market. Historical data is clear – most consumers and patients in that situation will not go without, despite what cannabis opponents and certain policymakers would lead people to believe. Until consumers and patients have legal options to purchase the type of cannabis that they prefer, via channels that they prefer, they will continue to turn to the unregulated market, and European cannabis policy modernization goals will never be fully achieved.

Consumers and patients across Europe need to keep the pressure on their policymakers to modernize national laws and EU agreements. They need to educate everyone they can about the harms of cannabis prohibition and the benefits of modernized cannabis policies. Everyone needs to know that cannabis prohibition is a failed public policy, and it harms all members of society, whether they consume cannabis or not. When limited public resources are wasted enforcing failed cannabis prohibition, everyone loses, including taxpayers and members of the criminal justice system.

Individual nations in Europe need to band together and modernize European Union agreements. Additionally, in Germany specifically, domestic policymakers need to allow regional adult-use cannabis commerce pilot trials to proceed. As I previously mentioned, pilot trials are already operating in the Netherlands and Switzerland, and no major issues have been reported. The same will be true in Germany when pilot trials are launched. There is no valid excuse for the continued pilot trial foot-dragging in Germany.

The European Union and European Commission need to recognize that humans are going to consume cannabis, whether it is legal to do so or not. It is clearly better for public health outcomes, taxpayers, local economies, and the criminal justice system when consumers and patients make their cannabis purchases from regulated sources instead of from criminal operations.

European cannabis prohibition has been in place for decades, and it has done nothing to lower consumption rates. All it has done is enrich the unregulated market, much of which is controlled by organized criminal enterprises that do not care about children and public health outcomes. It is beyond time for a more sensible, reality-based public policy approach.

As cannabis entrepreneurs, investors, policymakers, regulators, and industry service providers descended upon Germany in recent days for the International Cannabis Business Conference week, one thing is very evident: worldwide interest in Europe’s emerging legal cannabis market is surging.

I am based in the United States (Oregon), and having spent the last week in Germany surrounded by representatives from nearly every legal cannabis market on earth, and witnessing things on the ground firsthand, I can safely say that Europe’s status as being the most exciting place for cannabis policy and industry is officially here.

People from every corner of the globe are scrambling to gain a meaningful footprint in Germany and other legal markets in Europe, and rightfully so. Europe’s Green Rush era is in full swing.

In a lot of ways, what is happening in Europe right now reminds me of what occurred in the United States from 2012-2016 when the first of our states approved modernized adult-use cannabis laws. As many of us from the U.S. who attended The Talman House and International Cannabis Business Conference events this week in Berlin discussed, it felt like going back in time, and that we were re-watching a movie that we had already seen.

Yet, in other ways, the emergence of the modernized European cannabis industry is completely unique with its own nuances, opportunities, and challenges. There are certainly many components of the legal German cannabis industry’s rise, and to a lesser extent, other European markets, that are similar to what happened in the United States and Canada years ago. But some things are entirely new.

Knowing what the similarities are between North America’s experience and Europe’s, and equally important, what is not similar, is paramount for everyone who wants to succeed. Right now, Europe has the chance to incorporate the best of what has happened in the U.S. and Canadian markets and to learn from North America’s mistakes and failings.

Members of Europe’s legal cannabis community, along with policymakers and regulators, have a golden opportunity to create something better than the world has ever witnessed before. It is up to all of us, from entrepreneurs to investors to government officials, to capitalize on this historic moment and not squander it.

The biggest positive lesson that has come out of the United States and Canada that Europe must learn from is that when given the legal option to do so, consumers and patients will make their purchases from regulated cannabis channels instead of making those purchases from unregulated sources, provided that policies and regulations are sensible.

What constitutes ‘sensible’ is subjective and leaves a lot of room for interpretation. However, we now objectively know that in legal North American markets, robust access to reasonably regulated legal cannabis commerce will decimate the unregulated industry. Consumers and patients clearly prefer to make their purchases from commerce channels that have set hours of operation, on-time delivery and/or storefronts, and tested products. Unregulated sources do not offer any of those things.

Conversely, in North American markets where overburdensome regulations and illogical policies were implemented, the unregulated market continues to thrive. The data is clear that consumers and patients are willing to pay a little extra for regulated products. But there comes a point when regulations and taxes drive up costs to such an extent that it deters legal purchases, at which point people continue to buy their cannabis products from unregulated sources.

In my ongoing discussions with top European legal cannabis expert Peter Homberg of gunnercooke, he often points out that there are three goals of German cannabis policy modernization efforts. The three goals, which Mr. Homberg touched on in his keynote address on day 1 of the International Cannabis Business Conference in Berlin, also extend to other EU markets (paraphrased below):

1. To protect children.
2. To boost public health outcomes.
3. To hinder the unregulated market.

The first two items on the above list flow from the third, and success can only be achieved by recognizing the reality that consumers and patients are going to purchase and consume cannabis products, and they must be afforded the legal options to do so.

European lawmakers and regulators who wish to stick their heads in the sand and act as if prohibition or overburdensome regulations will somehow magically reduce European cannabis consumption do so at their own peril, and at the peril of public health and other outcomes. That is particularly true in Germany, where the launch of regional adult-use cannabis commerce pilot trials has experienced several delays, and where conservative members of the newly elected governing coalition have expressed a desire to scrap pilot trials and other legalization provisions entirely.

Such members of the German governing coalition are, presumably as a political strategy, refusing to recognize a key point – that regional adult-use cannabis commerce pilot trials are not a new thing and are already successfully operating in the Netherlands and Switzerland. Just as the sky has not fallen over those EU nations, the same will prove to be true if the incoming German Minister of Health Nina Warken, and the recently announced Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture (BMEL) Alois Rainer, allow already-submitted pilot trial applications to proceed.

For an insightful and thorough examination of both Nina Warken and Alois Rainer, both of whom will be instrumental in overseeing Germany’s emerging cannabis industry in the near future, check out a recent article by krautinvest.

A major difference between the North American markets and what is being built in Germany and Europe is the European Union (EU), as well as the EU’s politically independent executive arm, the European Commission (EC). All member nations are bound by EU agreements and EC policies and processes, and while state-level markets in the U.S. operate under the federal umbrella, it is not the same dynamic compared to the EU/EC.

EU agreements prohibit adult-use commerce models found at the state level in the United States and what is in place in Canada at a national level. Medical cannabis commerce is permitted in the European market, but adult-use commerce is limited to models that are based in research and designed to help boost public health outcomes, such as pilot trials and cultivation associations.

Those limitations need to be addressed via continued lobbying of continental decision-makers, and while many of them may be committed to ignoring demands to modernize EU agreements, the demands and pressure must be consistently applied nonetheless.

A significant lesson learned from ongoing policy and regulatory implementation in the United States is that a ‘patchwork’ approach is inefficient and chaotic, and ultimately doesn’t work for anyone. In the U.S., every legal state operates in a siloed fashion, with each jurisdiction having its own laws and regulations, and yet each state is also governed by conflicting federal law.

The same dysfunctional dynamic is on display in the EU to some degree, where individual nations have their own set of industry rules, which are then overlapped by an additional layer of EU-level rules that are either vague, conflicting, or in some cases, outright harmful. It is vital that the EU modernize and harmonize agreements and other policies in such a way that it recognizes reality and provides better certainty for patients, consumers, industry members, and ultimately, governments.

Europe’s cannabis industry and advocacy communities must continue to educate the rest of European society about the benefits of sensible policy modernization and the harms of senseless cannabis prohibition laws and regulations.

All the eyes of the global cannabis community are fixated on what is happening in Germany and other emerging European markets right now, including and especially the eyes of policymakers and regulators. Members of Europe’s emerging industry need to be mindful and strive to be good stewards of the opportunity that is being afforded to them. Germany’s industry and other legal markets in Europe are under a microscope right now, and that will remain the case for the foreseeable future.

I was asked many times while I was in Berlin for the International Cannabis Business Conference week what I consider to be the biggest lesson that entrepreneurs and investors can learn from the U.S., and my answer was always the same: don’t let your emotions get the best of you. Always perform your due diligence and make your decisions based on a sound process that you would apply to any other large, emerging industry.

Cannabis is exciting, and Europe’s industry potential is enormous. But if you don’t anticipate how fierce the competition will be, and recognize that industry success will not involve a straight path, you can lose a lot of money really fast.

I will end this article with a word of caution, as someone who had a front-row seat to how things unfolded in the United States years ago. We are all in this era of European cannabis together, and a single wrong move by one person or entity will no doubt be applied by cannabis opponents to the rest of Europe’s industry.

This special and historic moment in time can never be repeated, and we need to learn from the mistakes made in North America and ensure that things are done right in Europe to help put in place a foundation and framework that will set the stage for years to come. Proceed accordingly.