Cannabis legalisation hampered by most German of substances: red tape

Joints now mingle openly with pints among fans watching the European football championship in host nation Germany, which in the spring became the first big EU country to legally allow personal recreational use of cannabis .

That is, provided the fan is over 18, only carrying a small amount of the narcotic, not smoking in the stands of a stadium and not in possession of more than three plants at their officially registered home.

Welcome to the brave new not-so-freewheeling world of soft drug use in Europe’s top economy.

Activists who campaigned for decades for legalisation say that the rollout, closely watched by countries around the world to see how the experiment plays out, has been hampered by that most German of substances: red tape.

The hotly disputed law passed by Olaf Scholz’s three-party coalition, which took effect in April, legalised cultivating up to three plants for private consumption, the possession of 50g (1.75oz) of cannabis at one time at home and 25g in public.

Related: With Germany legalising cannabis, Europe is reaching a tipping point. Britain, take note | Steve Rolles

But euphoria at the market finally emerging from the shadows has been stubbed out by regulatory zeal and what activists call political chicanery in conservative regions where the opposition to cannabis is strongest.

A key phase began on 1 July with the establishment of registered cannabis clubs, which proponents say are vital to assuring the smooth path towards legal weed and supplanting the underworld street trade.

The keenly awaited launch, however, has been lost in a thicket of statutes and hyperdevolved federalism.

What was meant to be a pragmatic step towards evidence-based drug policy has turned into a “bureaucratic monster”, according to critics.

“The biggest problem at the moment is that the situation with the authorities is totally unclear,” said Oliver Waack-Jürgensen of the Berlin cannabis club High Ground, which has 150 members.

Would-be club founders must document the number of members, a permanent location, the size of growing space and the estimated annual output of cannabis in order to get the green light.

If more cannabis is produced than expected, the surplus must be destroyed, and only members are allowed to do the planting, watering, fertilising and harvesting. Pickup of the weed must be in person, with an ID affixed with a biometric photo. Passing on buds or leaves to friends is not allowed, only seeds.

All the procedures are subject to spot checks by the authorities. Police unions have already scoffed at the likelihood of effective enforcement among an estimated 4.5 million cannabis users in Germany. Meanwhile, the Berlin region, for one, has not even settled on which public office should be processing official applications amid a patchwork quilt of local statutes. In the capital, it means bumping up against a notorious official apparatus that leaves many citizens waiting months to do simple tasks such as renewing their passports.

Waack-Jürgensen, 61, said he has been using cannabis since he was 15, most recently for pain. He knows European drug laws inside out but is still flummoxed by the complexity of the German legislation, highlighting “huge regional differences”.

“We haven’t managed in three months to fill out the necessary forms – when there are forms, they are wrong or incomplete,” he said, noting that hopes for a “green Christmas” this year had already been dashed. “We now aim to be up and running by the first quarter of 2025.”

The nonprofit clubs are meant to grow the supply for their members and provide youth protection, quality control, security and addiction prevention measures.

In order to thwart drug tourism, members must have lived in Germany for six months, sign up to a club for a minimum of three months and have a clean criminal record for narcotics.

Clubs are dependent on fee-paying members to start operating but are not allowed to advertise, said Marten Knopke of the Cannabis Social Club Leipzig, thus robbing them of a key source of capital needed to rent offices and land for growing purposes. Consumption on club premises is also verboten.

“We are subject to more restrictions than any alcohol company,” Knopke said, echoing a frequent complaint from the cannabis scene about drinking, which kills more than 60,000 people in Germany each year. “The government has also made it really difficult for us to stand up to the hidden [narcotics] market.”

Steffen Geyer, 45, head of the umbrella organisation of German Cannabis Social Clubs, said that foreign tourists who had come for Euro 2024 had been disappointed to learn that Germany had not turned overnight into the promised land for weed.

“I had a group of English fans here yesterday and they wanted to know where they could buy stuff legally,” Geyer said at Berlin’s 30-year-old Hemp Museum, which he co-runs. “I couldn’t give them anything – couldn’t even say where they could get something,” under penalty of heavy fines, he said..

“There are no shops where you can buy, meaning they will end up buying something on the underground market, which is very dangerous in Berlin,” because of contaminated drugs and the role of the mafia in the trade, he said.

Political scientist Astrid Séville of the University of Lüneburg said there was a disconnect between Germany’s desired self-image of efficiency and a widespread perception of institutional dysfunction.

“Germany wants to have the best and most dynamic administration in the world but can’t manage to – and that’s the big problem,” Séville said.

Geyer said activists were prepared to fight fire with fire by launching legal battles and lobbying to get more “realistic” policies approved in the courts and parliament. In the meantime, he said his comrades in arms had proved they could wait out a contradictory drug policy that acknowledges widespread use while making it difficult to stay on the right side of the law. “We Germans aren’t only world champions in bureaucracy,” he said with a grin. “We are world champions in suffering through bureaucracy.”