German Coalition Parties Announce Plans To Evaluate—But Not Repeal—The Country’s Marijuana Legalization Law

Following a pivotal national election in Germany earlier this year, political parties that are cooperating to form a new coalition government have announced they’ll conduct an “open-ended evaluation” of the country’s new marijuana legalization law—meaning that at least for now, officials will allow the policy to stay in place.

Reform advocates had been watching closely to see how the centrist coalition would handle the legalization law, which officially took effect last April. Conservative lawmakers who won the most votes in the election have expressed their desire to roll back the law, but they were not able to get another party to agree to that plan as part of the new coalition agreement announced on Wednesday.

“In the fall of 2025, we will conduct an open-ended evaluation of the cannabis law,” says a new 146-page coalition agreement between the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), Christian Social Union (CSU) and Social Democratic Party (SPD), according to a translation.

Lawmakers who support the marijuana legalization law cheered the new agreement, which for now will leave in place the Cannabis Consumption Act (Konsumcannabisgesetz, or CanG) rather than seek to repeal it.

“For all those who thought this was important: #CanG stays!” Carmen Wegge, an SDP politician in the country’s Bundestag, posted on social media after the release of the new agreement.

The German Hemp Association (DHV) also cheered the news of the agreement.

“The CanG won’t be reversed for now!” the trade group said on social media—an indication of just how concerned legalization supporters were that results of the national election could undo the reform.

Niklas Kouparanis, co-founder and CEO of the German medical marijuana company Bloomwell Group said the country’s cannabis industry “is breathing a sigh of relief.”

“The new government is sending a strong signal: Germany’s legal cannabis industry is sustainable even under a CDU chancellor,” Kouparanis said in a statement. “Cannabis in Germany will attract global interest and investors, more jobs will be created, sales will continue to rise, the state will generate more tax revenue and we’re projecting that soon more than a million patients will benefit from medical cannabis.”

“The Coalition agreement confirms what many already forecasted,” he added: “legal cannabis is here to stay.

There was good reason for supporters to be concerned. Ahead of last year’s election, two of the parties now in power—CDU and CSU—said in a manifesto that they would be “abolishing the traffic light coalition’s cannabis law,” claiming that the plan “protects dealers and exposes our children and teenagers to drug use and addiction.”

Other parties also addressed cannabis issues in the run-up to the elections.

Beginning in April of last year, the legalization of possession and home cultivation for adults took effect. Cannabis social clubs  also began to open, providing members with legal access to marijuana products .

In December, the federal minister for food and agriculture signed off on a plan to allow for research-focused commercial marijuana pilot programs to test legal and regulated access to cannabis for consumers.

At the local level, the city of Frankfurt late last year 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.

Despite widespread concern that results of February’s election could spell doom for the legalization law, most Germans— 59 percent of eligible voters —support allowing adults to purchase cannabis from licensed stores.

For the previous three years Germans were polled on the issue, support sat at just under 50 percent. But as the country’s marijuana law began being implemented last year, there was a spike in favor of the policy change.

Notably, respondents who identified as CDU or CSU—two of the three coalition parties behind the new agreement—were the only political affiliations among which majorities of voters supported rolling back the reform law.

German officials last year convened an international 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.

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 in 2023 .

Government officials from several countries, including the US, also met in Germany in 2023 to discuss international marijuana policy issues as the host nation worked to enact legalization.

A group of German lawmakers, as well as Blienert, separately  visited the US 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.

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