Germany Cannabis Use Remains Stable After Legalization

Legalizing cannabis is frequently assumed to increase consumption. Germany’s experience suggests the relationship is more complicated.

A new population study examining cannabis use before and after Germany introduced partial legalization found no statistically significant change in past-year use or heavy consumption during the reform’s first two years.¹ The findings do not prove that legalization has no effect, but they challenge the idea that removing criminal penalties automatically causes an immediate surge in use.

Germany also provides an unusually valuable policy test. Unlike Canada and many US states, the country did not create a conventional commercial recreational market. Adults gained the right to possess and cultivate cannabis, while nonprofit cultivation associations offered another tightly controlled source. Retail stores, mass-market brands, and general commercial sales remained prohibited.

That distinction may help explain why consumption remained broadly stable. Legalization changes the law, but the structure of the resulting market may determine how strongly consumer behavior changes.

What Germany’s Cannabis Study Found

Researchers analyzed data from the German Study on Tobacco Use, known as DEBRA. The investigation covered 23 survey waves conducted between April 2022 and April 2026, providing approximately two years of observations before the Cannabis Act and two years after it took effect on April 1, 2024.

The combined sample included 35,957 people between 14 and 64 years old. Of those respondents, 2,302 reported using cannabis during the previous 12 months. Among these past-year consumers, 270 reported using cannabis daily or almost daily.

The researchers tested whether the direction of cannabis-use trends changed following legalization. They performed separate analyses for the overall population, men, women, people aged 14 to 24, and people aged 25 to 64. They also examined daily or almost-daily consumption among respondents who had used cannabis during the previous year.

None of the post-reform changes in trend were statistically significant. This included the younger group, an important finding because Germany’s legal possession and cultivation rights apply only to adults.

The results also remained consistent when the researchers moved the assumed intervention point backward or forward during sensitivity testing. That reduced the likelihood that the conclusion depended entirely on choosing one convenient survey wave as the beginning of the post-legalization period.

Germany Did Not Create a Commercial Cannabis Market

Germany describes its reform as partial legalization for good reason. Adults may possess limited quantities, cultivate plants at home, and obtain cannabis through nonprofit associations. However, the reform did not establish the type of licensed commercial retail system familiar to Canadian consumers.

The German Federal Ministry of Health’s Cannabis Act guidance emphasizes private cultivation and cooperative, non-commercial cultivation. Advertising remains restricted, consumption is prohibited in specified areas, and the legal framework contains protections intended to reduce youth exposure.

This matters because legalization can change behavior through several different pathways:

• Reducing the legal risk attached to possession and consumption
• Making cannabis easier and more convenient to obtain
• Lowering prices through competition and legal production
• Normalizing use through retail visibility, branding, and product variety

Germany activated the first pathway much more strongly than the others. Adults face less criminal exposure, but they do not encounter a dense network of recreational dispensaries competing for customers. Legal access through home cultivation and associations also requires more effort than purchasing a packaged product from a nearby store.

The findings therefore should not be interpreted as universal evidence that every form of legalization leaves consumption unchanged. They more specifically suggest that decriminalizing possession and permitting limited non-commercial supply may not produce an immediate population-wide increase.

Legalization And Commercialization Are Different Variables

Public debates often treat cannabis policy as a binary choice between prohibition and legalization. In practice, legal markets exist on a spectrum. Governments can allow possession while restricting supply, authorize nonprofit distribution, operate public retailers, license private stores, limit product categories, impose potency rules, or permit extensive commercial competition.

Each decision can affect consumption independently. A person who no longer fears arrest may still use cannabis at the same frequency. Greater retail access, lower prices, new product formats, and persistent promotion could exert additional influence later.

This distinction helps place Germany beside Canada. Recent MyCannabis coverage found that cannabis use increased in Canada without a corresponding increase in impaired driving. Canada legalized possession while also developing a nationwide commercial supply chain with physical stores, online ordering, branded products, and expanding legal availability.

Comparing the countries does not establish that retail commercialization caused the different consumption patterns. Their populations, baseline trends, survey methods, and implementation timelines differ. Nevertheless, the contrast points toward a more useful policy question: not simply whether cannabis is legal, but what type of legal system consumers encounter.

Why Stable Consumption Does Not Mean Nothing Changed

Prevalence is only one measure of a cannabis law’s effects. A reform could leave the number of consumers unchanged while altering where cannabis comes from, what products people use, how safely products are produced, and how frequently consumers interact with police or courts.

For example, someone who previously purchased cannabis illegally might begin growing it at home without changing consumption. That would not appear as an increase in past-year prevalence, yet it would represent a meaningful change in supply, enforcement exposure, and potentially product oversight.

Legalization can also affect reporting behavior. People may become more willing to acknowledge cannabis use after it becomes legal, creating an apparent increase even if their behavior has not changed. The German study did not detect such an increase, although its face-to-face household interviews may underestimate use because some participants remain reluctant to disclose it.

Other indicators are needed to build a complete picture. These include treatment admissions, road safety, product potency, youth access, arrests, illicit-market activity, poison-control reports, and medical prescribing. The European Union Drugs Agency provides broader context through its European Drug Report on cannabis, which shows why policy evaluation must consider health and market indicators alongside prevalence.

Why Cannabis Monitoring Needs Multiple Data Sources

Household surveys are essential, but no single measurement captures the entire market. Respondents may forget occasional consumption, misunderstand frequency questions, or conceal behavior. Surveys can also underrepresent marginalized groups and people without stable housing.

Germany’s repeated-wave design is a strength because it tracks movement over time instead of relying on one survey before legalization and another afterward. Still, each wave contained roughly 1,500 respondents, and only about 100 per wave reported past-year cannabis use. That leaves more uncertainty when examining smaller subgroups.

Wastewater testing could provide a useful complementary signal. As explored in MyCannabis coverage of cannabis monitoring through wastewater, chemical residues can reveal population-level patterns without depending on self-reporting. Wastewater data also have limitations related to weather, population movement, chemical degradation, and sampling methods, but agreement between surveys and wastewater would strengthen confidence in an observed trend.

Legal sales data would normally supply another indicator, but Germany’s lack of a broad recreational retail system limits their usefulness. Researchers must instead combine surveys with association membership, home-cultivation estimates, medical access, wastewater analysis, enforcement records, and illicit-market research.

The Two-Year Result Is Reassuring But Not Final

The study covers the early implementation period, not the reform’s permanent outcome. Cannabis associations took time to obtain approval and begin cultivation. Home growers needed time to establish reliable production. Consumer awareness, social norms, and legal supply channels may continue evolving.

The paper also notes that legalization effects can accumulate. A market that appears stable after two years may look different after five, particularly as legal access becomes easier and new habits form.

Causal claims are further limited because the study was observational and lacked a control country. Researchers identified no meaningful break in Germany’s consumption trend after April 2024, but other events could have influenced behavior during the same period. The analysis also could not separate the effects of the recreational Consumer Cannabis Act from changes introduced through the Medical Cannabis Act.

The correct conclusion is therefore measured: Germany’s reform was not associated with a detectable short-term increase in cannabis use, including heavy use. It is not evidence that future changes are impossible or that every legalization model will produce the same result.

Germany Offers A Different Cannabis Policy Experiment

Germany’s early experience weakens one of the simplest arguments against cannabis reform: that legal possession necessarily triggers an immediate surge in use. Across nearly 36,000 respondents and 23 survey waves, researchers found no statistically significant post-reform change in overall consumption, heavy use, or the trends observed within age and gender groups.

The broader lesson is that cannabis policy cannot be judged by the word legalization alone. Rules governing supply, retail access, promotion, pricing, cultivation, and product availability may be just as important as removing criminal penalties.

Germany has created legal space for adult cannabis use without constructing a full commercial recreational industry. The first two years suggest that this narrower model can change the legal environment without rapidly expanding the consumer population. Whether that stability continues as legal access matures will determine how valuable Germany becomes as a template for other countries considering reform.

References:

¹ Kotz, D., Manthey, J., Klosterhalfen, S., Steinhoff, P., & Viechtbauer, W. (2026). Cannabis use prevalence before and early after partial legalisation in Germany. International Journal of Drug Policy, 157, 105501. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.drugpo.2026.105501