Germany's Cannabis Act: what Pillar One actually changed

A framework of caps, not of shops

When the Cannabis Act took effect on 1 April 2024, most international coverage reached for the word legalisation. Two years of implementation have made clear how misleading that shorthand is. The Konsumcannabisgesetz did not create a market. It created a set of narrow permissions for individuals and for licensed non-profit associations, and it attached a cap or a duty to almost every one of them.

The Federal Health Ministry's own FAQ is the clearest guide to the design intent, because it presents the reform as a package of youth-protection and consumer-health measures rather than as an economic opening. The numbers it lists are the operative part of the law for most readers.

• Private self-cultivation is limited to three cannabis plants per adult.
• Possession is capped at 25 grams in public and 50 grams of dried cannabis in the private sphere.
• Cultivation associations may pass on a maximum of 25 grams per day and 50 grams per month to an adult member.
• Members under 21 may receive at most 30 grams per month, at no more than 10 percent THC.
• Associations may pass on up to 7 seeds or 5 cuttings per month, including to adult non-members for private cultivation.
• Sending, delivering and online trade in cannabis remain prohibited, as do edibles and synthetic cannabinoids.

Where you still cannot consume

The consumption restrictions are the part most often missed by visitors. Consumption is prohibited in the immediate vicinity of anyone under 18, in pedestrian zones between 07:00 and 20:00, and within sight of schools, children's and youth facilities, playgrounds and publicly accessible sports facilities. The FAQ defines within sight operationally: more than 100 metres from the entrance area is no longer within sight. Consumption inside cultivation associations, and within sight of their entrances, is also prohibited.

Associations carry a compliance load

The association model is where the reform's administrative weight sits. Licensing requires a named prevention appointee with demonstrated counselling knowledge, a health and youth protection concept, documented security measures, certificates of good conduct for board members, and declared cultivation areas and expected volumes. Associations must keep records that make cannabis and propagation material traceable, including material unfit to pass on, and they are subject to state inspection.

Two structural limits matter for anyone mapping supply. Associations may not be sited within 200 metres of the entrance of a school, youth facility or playground, and Land governments may cap the number of associations at one per 6,000 inhabitants per district or district-free city. Together these determine how much of the country an association network can realistically reach.

Medical cannabis is a different statute

It is worth restating because the two regimes are routinely conflated: medical cannabis is governed by the Medizinal-Cannabisgesetz, not by the KCanG. Prescription remains possible, BfArM publishes the prescriber and industry guidance, and companies handling medical cannabis face their own licensing and reporting duties. Nothing in the non-medical framework changes what a patient with a prescription may do, and nothing in the medical framework permits an association to behave like a pharmacy.

A review programme is built into the law

The statute anticipated that its own assumptions would need testing. The ministry's FAQ sets out an evaluation schedule for the controlled passing-on of cannabis: a first evaluation 18 months after entry into force, an interim report after two years and a full evaluation within four years. The ministry also publishes an Effects of Cannabis Legalisation study and accompanying policy paper.

Those documents, rather than press estimates, are what LeafCurrent will track. This page is orientation, not legal advice; anyone with an operational stake should read the statute and take qualified German legal advice.