Germany's Partial Cannabis Legalisation Has Not Yet Shifted Use Rates, National Study Finds

When Germany partially legalised recreational cannabis in April 2024, opponents warned of a surge in use. Supporters argued regulation would bring safer access without fuelling a new wave of consumption. Eighteen months on, one of the largest national monitoring studies yet suggests neither side can claim a dramatic short-term shift — at least not in overall prevalence.

Published in Drug and Alcohol Dependence, the analysis draws on the German Study on Tobacco Use (DEBRA): 21 repeated cross-sectional household surveys conducted between April 2022 and November 2025, spanning roughly two years before and one and a half years after the Act on the Handling of Cannabis for Non-Medical Use — the KCanG — took effect on 1 April 2024.

What Germany changed — and what it did not

This matters because Germany's model is not Canadian-style commercial legalisation. Under the KCanG, adults may possess limited amounts, cultivate small quantities at home, and join non-profit cannabis social clubs. Commercial retail sales remain prohibited.

At the same time, Germany also loosened medical cannabis access in April 2024. Prescription cannabis flowers became easier to obtain via telemedicine for a wide range of conditions, helping to make Germany the largest medical cannabis market in Europe — with an estimated 200 tonnes of medical product available in 2025, according to government evaluators cited in the paper.

The researchers were careful to study population-level use trends, not the medical market alone. Their question was straightforward: did partial legalisation change how many Germans used cannabis, and did it change how heavily existing users consumed?

Stable prevalence across 32,991 interviews

The team interviewed 32,991 people aged 14 to 64 through computer-assisted face-to-face surveys at home. Overall, 6.3% reported using cannabis at least once in the past 12 months — about 2,092 people. Among those past-year users, 11.6% said they used daily or almost daily.

Using piecewise logistic regression — a statistical method that tests whether the trend line bends at a specific date — the researchers looked for a change in slope from the first full survey wave after the law came into force. None of the pre-reform trend slopes were statistically significant (all p ≥ .08), and none of the post-reform changes in slope were significant either (all p ≥ .31).

In plain language: cannabis use prevalence did not suddenly jump after April 2024, nor did the share of heavy users among people who already used cannabis. Sensitivity analyses that shifted the assumed reform date by a wave or two told the same story.

"The partial legalisation of cannabis was not associated with a short-term change in trends of 12-month cannabis use prevalence early after implementation," the authors conclude — and they found no change in daily or almost daily use among past-year users either.

Context from other German data

The findings sit alongside other national surveys. Cannabis use in Germany had already been rising for more than a decade while the drug remained illegal — from around 5.2% twelve-month prevalence among 18- to 59-year-olds in 2012 to about 10.0% in 2021.

The Epidemiological Survey of Substance Abuse (ESA) estimated 9.8% twelve-month prevalence among 18- to 64-year-olds in 2024, up from 8.8% in 2021, but that additional rise was not statistically significant. The increase was concentrated among men; women's rates stayed flat.

Youth-focused surveys show a more mixed picture in young adults aged 18 to 25, with some studies reporting higher male use between 2023 and 2025. The DEBRA analysis did not find a statistically significant post-reform break in trends for 14- to 24-year-olds either, though the authors note subgroup samples were smaller and more volatile.

Limitations the authors flag openly

Lead author Daniel Kotz, based at Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf and University College London, and colleagues stress this is an early snapshot, not a final verdict.

Household surveys miss some of the most marginalised groups, and face-to-face interviews at home may undercount cannabis use compared with anonymous methods. Legalisation could also change how willing people are to admit use — either up or down — which would distort before-and-after comparisons.

Perhaps most importantly, several parts of the reform had not fully taken effect during much of the follow-up period. Cannabis social clubs only began operating from July 2024, and the full impact of legal home cultivation may take years to show up in population data.

"It appears likely that some policy effects — particularly regarding legal access through private and collective cultivation — have not yet fully unfolded," the paper states. The team recommends continued monitoring across multiple data sources over a longer post-implementation window.

What this means for UK readers

Cannabis Insider covers UK law and policy first. This study describes Germany — a different legal framework, a different medical market, and a partial decriminalisation model that Britain is not currently adopting.

Even so, the findings are relevant to Westminster and devolved debates. Policymakers weighing decriminalisation or non-commercial regulation often face the same prediction: that reform will immediately normalise use. Germany's experience so far — under a tightly constrained model without for-profit retail — offers one counterpoint from a major European neighbour.

It does not settle the argument. International evidence on legalisation remains mixed, and commercial markets in North America have shown different patterns from decriminalisation-only reforms. Germany also runs Europe's largest medical cannabis sector in parallel, which complicates any simple read-across.

For now, the German data suggest partial legalisation did not produce a detectable short-term break in national use trends. Whether that holds as clubs mature, medical prescribing continues to expand, and more years of data accumulate is the question researchers — and politicians — will be watching next.

Reporting based on Cannabis use prevalence before and early after partial legalisation in Germany, published in Drug and Alcohol Dependence, 2026. All prevalence figures and legal details refer to Germany unless stated otherwise.