I have helped work on cannabis reform efforts since the late 1990s when medical cannabis reform initiatives were being heavily pursued on the West Coast of the United States. Those efforts culminated in election victories in California in 1996, and Oregon and Washington in 1998. Since that time I have seen cannabis prohibitionists across the U.S. basically recycle their failed talking points and tactics from that era over and over again, and the same thing appears to be happing in Germany right now.

Unless you have been living under a rock then you know that Germany is trending towards launching an adult-use cannabis market, and also that once the launch occurs, Germany’s market is going to be considerably more massive than that of Uruguay and Canada combined. Unfortunately, there are futile attempts ramping up that are geared towards halting the process, with the latest one involving cannabis opponents hurling the idea that cannabis cannot be legalized in Germany ‘due to European treaties.’

Theory Versus Reality

Is Germany bound by European and international treaties, including ones that prohibit cannabis? Yes, obviously. Are Canada and Uruguay also bound by international treaties that prohibit adult-use cannabis commerce, including ones that Germany is also a part of? Also yes. With all of that being said, laws are only as good as the enforcement behind them, and just as the sky did not fall and the international community didn’t perform whatever the global community version of a SWAT raid is on Canada and Uruguay when they launched adult-use cannabis sales, the same will prove to be true in Germany when they inevitably launch adult-use sales within their own borders.

Leading up to legalization in Canada in 2018, Russia tried the ‘what about international treaties’ argument in an attempt to derail Canada’s efforts, to no avail. The same thing happened in Uruguay in 2013 when the United Nations tried the same tactic (and failed). It’s a similar concept that I personally witnessed in the United States when opponents tried and failed with their ‘but cannabis is federally illegal!’ arguments. Bad laws are meant to be broken, and cannabis prohibition is one of the worst public policies in human history.

Even within Europe there are examples of jurisdictions disregarding continental and international treaties when it comes to adult-use cannabis commerce. Late last year Malta passed an adult-use legalization measure, although they have yet to issue any licenses and access there is going to be different compared to what will eventually be implemented in Germany. Regardless, there has been no crackdown in Malta as a result of passing a measure that is in direct defiance of certain treaties. Adult-use cannabis pilot programs area already in place in Denmark, with Switzerland getting ready to launch its own pilot program, and eventually, the Netherlands. Again, international treaties have yet to derail any of those efforts in those European countries.

An Obvious Need For A New Approach

Earlier this month European anti-drug coordinators met in Prague, and Czech National Anti-drug Coordinator Jindřich Vobořil called for a new approach to cannabis policy and regulation in Europe at the continental level.

“We hope it will be a coordinated effort (to regulate the cannabis market). It is impossible not to talk about it on an EU-wide basis. Prohibition has not proved to be effective enough; we need to look for other models of control. A controlled market may be the only possible solution,” Vobořil said according to Euractiv.

Cannabis reform is on the move in Europe and in every other corner of the earth, and with it, the spread of the emerging cannabis industry. Lawmakers and regulators can try all of the delay tactics that they can think of, and it’s likely a safe bet that they certainly will, however, those efforts will always prove to be futile. At best, all it will do is delay the inevitable. The cannabis industry toothpaste is out of the tube and it is not going back in, and it’s beyond time that treaties reflect that undeniable fact and catch up with reality.

Lawyers for the Bundestag Scientific Service of the Bundestag issue analysis of cannabis legalization, claiming it violates EU law – and the cry is picked up, again, by the conservative state Health Minister in Bavaria

The clash over legalization is getting nasty in Germany. In the last three weeks, in late August, a conservative politician, a CSU member and Klaus Holetschek, the state Health Minister of Bavaria, had called out the federal German Chancellor, Olaf Scholz, for proceeding on cannabis reform even though Scholz admitted that cannabis was not harmless.

Now, on the official website of the state of Bavaria, Holetschek, has issued a press release calling for the government to stop work on the legalization of cannabis – this time quoting a group of Bundestag lawyers who say that German cannabis legalization will run afoul of EU law.

There are several problems with this approach. The first is that yes, at present, EU law does prohibit recreational cannabis use – mirroring international law on the same issue. However, just as CBD was reclassified by the EU as not a narcotic (and German law is now out of compliance with the same), the entire matter is now being considered at a multilateral level across the EU. Using circular logic like this is patently disingenuous.

The second problem with this tactic of course, is that it smacks of special interests within the CSU/CDU, particularly from Bavaria, who seem to want to derail a popular legislative initiative by the current government. This line of reasoning also fails to mention that the group doing this very conservative analysis was tasked to do the same by CSU affiliated health politician Stephan Pilsinger  – a member of the Bundestag’s health committee – and also, not coincidentally, also hailing from Bavaria.

Why Are Conservatives from Bavaria Challenging Government Efforts To Legalize Cannabis?

There are several reasons that the Bavarian CSU appears to be increasingly vocal on the topic of federal cannabis reform. The first, of course, is that the state is known, domestically at least, to be the most conservative in the country. Kind of like a “German Texas.” Cannabis infractions are more harshly punished here than anywhere else in the country.

Beyond this, however, this campaign seems to be motivated as much by anti-cannabis voices from the party that lost control of the government last national election. This effort, in other words, appears to be the effort of a group of conservative politicians, on a state level, to slow down federal reform.

It is not a tactic unknown in the United States. Whether it is likely to work remains unseen. That said, given the statements of the federal Health Minister, Karl Lauterbach of late, that is not likely.

CSU leader Markus Söder and Federal Health Minister Karl Lauterbach trade barbs over current government drug policy – which goes viral on German Twitter

It all began so innocently. Markus Söder, the leader of the “opposition” to the current parties comprising the Traffic Light Coalition, threw a weighted barb at the government’s drug policy during the CDU party congress in Hanover last weekend. Söder claimed that the legalization of cannabis would automatically lead to the legalization of drugs such as crystal methamphetamine (a highly addictive and dangerous street drug).

There were two problems with the approach. The first is that one of the parties now making up the coalition government, the Greens, did call for the legalization of “party drugs,” specifically cocaine, ecstasy, and amphetamines – but not crystal meth – in August. This is, however, not in the platform of the Traffic Light Coalition – which is only planning to legalize cannabis. A draft bill is expected to be made public either at the end of this year or early in 2023.

The second however, no doubt prompted by the above inaccuracies, was that Söder mispronounced the name of the drug – and instead, referred to the drug as “crystal mett.”

And this set off a rapid fire, and often humorous response.

Social Media Mockery

It was not only Lauterbach who mocked the mispronouncement on Twitter. His response? “Despite the scathing criticism from Markus Söder that the legalization of cannabis promotes the use of Crystal-Mett, we will not slow down on the same. At least vegetarians will remain safe.” Lauterbach was making a pun connecting the mispronunciation of the name of the drug to the German word for a chopped raw meat spread, frequently served with onions on bread.

This in turn set off an imaginative interchange where German Twitter users posted multiple pictures of what a “meat drug” might look like – or how it might be consumed.

Crystal Mett. Der richtig harte Stoff pic.twitter.com/ds02CE50Ya

— KarstenSt (@StKarsten) September 5, 2022

This particularly imaginative response showing an addict applying heat to a spoonful of the referenced meat spread and then injecting it directly into his veins is entitled “The really hard stuff.”

The responses – both from the Health Minister and the Twitterverse seem to reflect the fact that Germans are rapidly warming to the idea of recreational cannabis reform – especially as the majority of the country is behind medical use.

This is a very good sign for the passage of full cannabis legalization sometime in the next 18-24 months aus Deutschland.

Germany is in the midst of a cannabis legalization effort that is more complicated and robust than anything that has ever occurred since the dawn of cannabis prohibition so many decades ago. After the dust settled on Germany’s last federal election in 2021, the incoming coalition government announced plans to move Germany toward launching a regulated adult-use cannabis industry. The current governing German coalition, commonly referred to as the ‘Traffic Light Coalition,’ has worked since late 2021 to explore various public policy components of legalization. According to the results of a new poll from Ipsos, a strong majority of Germans support the effort.

Per Ipsos‘ news release announcing the results of the poll, “61 percent of those surveyed say they would support the controlled sale of cannabis in licensed stores. Only 39 percent consider the plans to legalize cannabis to be irresponsible and fundamentally reject legal sale and consumption.” The survey was conducted online between September 2 and 4, 2022, and involved 1,000 eligible voters between the ages of 18 and 75 in Germany.

Diving Into The Results

Fortunately, there’s majority support for legalization among all age categories (18-75), however, there are statistical differences between age groups. While 61% of the poll’s participants support adult-use cannabis legalization, roughly 55% of people aged 60-75 were supportive. That is quite a bit less than the level of support among poll participants that were aged 18-39 (65%). Sixty two percent of poll participants aged 40-59 years old expressed support for legalization.

The level of support for cannabis legalization does not extend to the legalization of other banned substances in Germany. When poll participants were asked if other substances should be legalized in addition to cannabis, 95% of people expressed opposition to such a public policy change. The overwhelming level of opposition was found across age groups, although younger poll participants were more likely to express support for further legalization compared to older poll participants.

Not An Easy Lift

The current general consensus for when regulated adult-use products will actually be available for legal purchase in Germany seems to be by the year 2025. After the results of the 2021 federal election in Germany became final there was hope for legalization to become a reality in 2022. However, time has proven that hope to be a bit too ambitious.

The fact of the matter is that what German lawmakers and regulators are trying to do is something that has never been done before, at least not at the same scale. Sure, Canada and Uruguay have implemented legal adult-use sales, yet those markets pale in comparison to the size and complexity of Germany’s market. Germany has a much larger population compared to Canada and Uruguay combined, and Germany’s geographical location makes things that much more complex to navigate.

I am personally hopeful that there will be multiple steps to implementing legalization in Germany. After all, there is no need to wait for sales regulations to be formulated before implementing personal possession, consumption, and cultivation provisions. Clearly, cannabis prohibition is a failed public policy in Germany and it would be wise for lawmakers to implement as many legalization provisions as possible that pertain to individual consumers prior to finalizing provisions geared towards regulated sales.