Germany legalization recap and thoughts

?

After spending some time reviewing the German Cannabis announcement, I'd like to highlight the key points and share what I took away from all the reading I’ve done. To begin, the vote wasn’t even close with 407 German lawmakers voting in favor of the new regulation and 226 lawmakers voting against.?

Key points:

-????? Adults over 18 may possess up to 25 grams of cannabis in public and up to 50 grams at home (30 grams for those under age 21)

-????? Personal production will allow people to grow up to three plants

-?????? Cannabis will be removed as a narcotic making prescriptions even easier which creates greater access to more people in a country with pharmacare. This is good news for many in the cannabis industry with some groups suggesting that patient numbers could increase as much as 7-10 times during the next year. Looking at cannabis sales there last year insurance reimbursements reached around 51 million euros from Jan-Mar 2023.? That doesn’t take into account all the non-reimbursed cannabis purchased. In Canada, the total medical cannabis sales accounted for around 66 million euros in same period. In the short term this should result in opportunities to export more medical cannabis to Germany while domestic production is limited.

And of course, the point that is getting the most attention, Germanys entry into “cannabis legalization” which is the distribution of cannabis through a “nonprofit members club system”. These will be open to German residents 18+ and have a maximum 500 members each. The clubs will be allowed to grow cannabis for members personal consumption and membership in multiple clubs will not be permitted. So, although this is not the big money maker opportunity that many had hoped for, there are some areas with potential to make money such as: suppliers of various equipment, genetics companies, service providers, and those that rent properties, to name a few. An additional aspect that these clubs will represent is to destigmatize cannabis use! This is an important step forward.? As well, the program will?create access to actual cannabis instead of what is being legally sold there now, things like hemp derived CBD products and those with synthetic cannabinoids like HHC (which I am not a fan of these synthetics and was seeing these all over the U.S, ?but I will write about that separately soon).

With this move Germany becomes the third country in Europe with some form of official “adult-use” legalization (Malta and Luxembourg being the others) and puts it ahead of other countries that are heading in that direction (like Netherlands, Switzerland, Czech Republic, Portugal).?While this is not a done deal as it needs to go through the “Upper House”, and will most certainly face some opposition it's a big step in the right direction. I wanted to highlight something that Christian Democrat legislator Tino Sorge said, “You are asserting in all seriousness that by legalizing more drugs we will contain drug use among young people”. In the early days of legalization this type of close-minded attitude was also prevalent here in Canada. People like Mr. Sorge need to understand that cannabis is already very easy to access on the streets and also the current “legal” products on the market can be doing more harm than the ones they prohibit. At present, conservative estimates have some 4.5 million Germans that are already considered to be cannabis users. An evaluation of the legislation's effect on protection of children and youths is to be carried out within 18 months of the legislation taking effect and around then we should see more of what legalization looks like in Germany and beyond.

?Thank you for reading and feel free to put comments on this and share your thoughts. Look forward to seeing you in Barcelona and Berlin or feel free to reach out for a chat about this all.

?

?