Here’s What Data Says on First Year of German Legalization
An important part of the German cannabis legalization effort is to assess the outcomes of the new policies. Is legal access to weed changing consumption habits among youths? What are the outlooks on public health? And is there a drop in cannabis-related crimes? The numbers for the first year of legalization are in, and here is what they speak.
Germany implemented the momentous CanG legalization law in April 2024, becoming the largest EU economy to regulate adult-use of marijuana, even though in a more limited capacity than planned initially. Here’s what data says for the first year of German recreational cannabis legalization.
No Dramatic Changes in Cannabis Use Rates Among German Youths
No juice for the haters. The collapse of German society because too many kids got ‘high’ did not go forward as some liked to imagine prior to legalization. The German Federal Institute for Public Health published the latest data on the matter, and there’s nothing alarming in the numbers. The survey included 7,001 young people aged 12-25 in the period between April and July 2025, and compared the results with a similar study conducted in the same period in 2023. The proportion of adolescents aged 12-17 who consumed pot in the past year fell from 6.7 percent in 2023 to 6.1 percent this year, according to a local report from RND.
The use among young adults aged 18-25 has risen slightly in the same period, from 23.3% to 25.6% among those who said they’ve used cannabis in the past year, and from 8.0% to 8.9% among those who reported they regularly indulge in weed. By all means, that’s an negligible increase. Hopefully, it does not unleash a new wave of hysteria to prohibit cannabis in Germany.
Majority of Germans Turn to Legal Channels to Source Their Weed These Days
Legalization reportedly led to changes in the supply channels among adult weed users. Roughly 88 percent of users obtained legally produced cannabis in the last six months, a figure that stood at 23.5% before the CanG act came into effect. This is the finding of a collaborative survey between the Institute for Addiction Research at the Frankfurt University of Applied Sciences and the Evangelical University of Freiburg. By ‘legally produced,’ it is understood that folks either grew their own bud, or they sourced it from cannabis clubs/associations and pharmacies.
The insight suggests that the legal framework is already eroding the black market, despite slow-going implementation of cannabis clubs/associations. The total number of approved licenses for cultivation clubs is currently 323, with over 500 other subjects waiting on the outcome for their license application. A single association currently accommodates an average of 275 members, according to official figures.
What About Cannabis Crimes?
Cannabis-related crimes appear to have halved in the period after legalization. Jörg Kinzig, director of the Institute of Criminology at Eberhard Karls University in Tübingen, emphasizes that cannabis-related crimes have fallen from 215,000 in 2023 to 100,000 last year. “Never before has such a field of crime been reduced to such an extent,” the expert says. He attributes the drop largely to the fact that consumption-related crimes are no longer applicable. Kinzig also says that the police and judiciary still express conflicting opinions and that their workload has not yet been reduced in line with the decline of prosecutions.
Daniel Kotz, professor at Heinrich Heine University in Düsseldorf further says that it is currently difficult to evaluate compliance in areas where cannabis use is strictly prohibited, such as playgrounds or school zones. He is calling for harmonization with the law on smoking tobacco, or simply making a rule that bans weed smoking on the same spots where cigarettes are already not allowed.
Cannabis poisoning in children and youth is very rare, according to local coverage, as are serious illnesses caused by ingestion of cannabis. Summed up, all numbers are telling that legal cannabis in Germany is steadily moving into a desired direction, which will make it easier for lawmakers to build on the existent framework and expand market activities in the near future.
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Stephen Andrews
