Majority Of Germans Support Legalizing Marijuana Similar To U.S. States, New Poll Shows Amid Concerns About Reversal Of Reform Law In 2025
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With the fate of Germany’s marijuana legalization law in question ahead of a consequential election early next year, a new poll shows that, for the first time, a strong majority of Germans say they back the policy.
The survey, commissioned by the German Hemp Association and released on Friday, found that 59 percent of eligible voters in the country support allowing adults to purchase cannabis from licensed stores, similar to markets in nearly half of U.S. states and Canada.
For the past three years that Germans were polled on the issue, support stagnated just below 50 percent. But as the country’s marijuana law has been implemented over the past year, there was a significant spike in favor of the policy change.
“The criticism of the current situation—where cannabis possession and use are allowed, but no legal shops are available—seems to have resonated with the public,” the hemp association said, according to a translation. “‘If we’re going to do it, let’s do it right’ appears to be the population’s conclusion.”
Erstmals spricht sich laut infratest dimap eine absolute Mehrheit der Deutschen für die vollständige Legalisierung von Cannabis aus!
Eine ähnlich große Mehrheit widerspricht den Plänen von @cducsubt, das KCanG zurück zu drehen.https://t.co/qluMMehQHt pic.twitter.com/0wIuUdgqZT— Hanfverband (@hanfverband) December 20, 2024
While it’s the first time that this particular polling firm identified majority support for the reform, a novel international survey released in 2022 also found majority support for legalization in several key European countries, including Germany.
Respondents who identified as Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and Christian Social Union (CSU) were the only political affiliations that supported rolling back the existing reform law in the poll. And it’s that coalition that advocates worry will seek to undermine the policy if they win in the national election in February, which many expect they will.
“We are abolishing the traffic light coalition’s cannabis law,” CDU and CSU said in their election manifesto. “This law protects dealers and exposes our children and teenagers to drug use and addiction.”
Other parties have also addressed cannabis issues in their manifestos heading up to the elections.
As the country heads into the election, German officials are still working to implement the legalization law that officially took effect in April with the legalization of possession and home cultivation for adults, as well as social clubs where people can access marijuana products.
Earlier this month, for example, Federal Minister for Food and Agriculture Cem Özdemir signed off on a plan to allow for research-focused commercial marijuana pilot programs to test legal and regulated access to cannabis for consumers—the latest iteration of the country’s legalization law.
The development doesn’t exactly represent the second “pillar” of the legalization law that the government had pledged was coming, but it will make it so universities and private companies can apply for permits to participate in commercial marijuana sales, with mandates to study the impact of the policy change.
Meanwhile, the city of Frankfurt recently announced plans to move forward with a five-year pilot program that would make cannabis products available to adults more broadly, with the city of Hanford also pursuing a similar plan. A number of other localities have also expressed interest in conducting cannabis sales pilot projects.
German officials also recently convened a multi-national conference where leaders were invited to share their experiences with legalizing and regulating marijuana, with a focus on public health and mitigating the illicit market.
Representatives from Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, the Czech Republic and Switzerland were invited by German Commissioner for Addiction and Drug Issues Burkhard Blienert to the meeting in Berlin last month.
The countries that participated in the ministerial have varying cannabis policies. Malta, for example, became the first European country to enact cannabis legalization in 2021. Luxembourg followed suit, with the reform officially taking effect last year.
Government officials from several countries, including the U.S., also met in Germany last year to discuss international marijuana policy issues as the host nation works to enact legalization.
A group of German lawmakers, as well as Blienert, separately visited the U.S. and toured California cannabis businesses in 2022 to inform their country’s approach to legalization.
The visit came after top officials from Germany, Luxembourg, Malta and the Netherlands held their first-of-its-kind meeting to discuss plans and challenges associated with recreational marijuana legalization in 2022.
Meanwhile, the United Nations (UN) drug control body recently reiterated that it considers legalizing marijuana for non-medical or scientific purposes a violation of international treaties, though it also said it appreciated that Germany’s government scaled back its cannabis plan ahead of the vote.
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