Two further German cities have announced plans to launch legal, regulated adult-use cannabis sales through model projects.
Last week, Hanover and Frankfurt published ‘letters of intent’ to launch controlled cannabis sales to thousands of participants through new model projects, designed to gather data and inform future drug policy in Germany.
The studies, both set to run for five years, will closely mirror those already running in Switzerland, however unlike its neighbour, Germany is yet to finalise federal regulations that would enable these projects to be launched.
With Germany’s Pillar 2 still on hold amid with a concrete date for passage yet to be determined, for now these statements of intent will remain just that.
The projects
Frankfurt
In collaboration with the Frankfurt University of Applied Sciences, the city has announced plans to launch a five-year study offering regulated adult-use cannabis to citizens from four specialised shops.
As with its Swiss counterparts, Frankfurt’s study will require any eligible residents of the city wishing to take part to register, enabling the health department and university to collect data and evaluate the projects impact on public health.
The primary aim of the study is to divert the city’s 50,000 reported cannabis users away from the black market, with studies suggesting a large majority of the cannabis available is contaminated either with other, more dangerous narcotics or contaminants like mould and pesticides.
Arthur Schroers, the head of Frankfurt’s drug department, suggested that the study will be an invaluable and unique opportunity to gather necessary data, and emphasised that the goal was to minimise harm and reduce consumption.
Participants will have to be over 18, in good health, and are required to complete regular medical surveys, health checks, and attend mandatory discussion groups.
They will also be limited to 50g of cannabis per month, and each gram available via the four stores will cost €10, a price intended to compete with the illicit market. All profits from the project will also be taxed, with revenues being put towards addiction prevention projects in the city.
German medical cannabis operator Sanity Group is set to supply and manage the stores, and according to its CEO Finn Age Hänsel, the company has been preparing for the launch of this trial for some time.
In November 2023, Sanity Group announced its participation in the Swiss pilot project Grashaus, becoming the first private company to do so.
At the time, Mr Hänsel told Business of Cannabis that he hoped to ‘learn a lot during this pilot programme that we can apply to Germany’.
“In the meantime, we can work with German municipalities to give them the right toolkit to create their own pilot project.”
Last week, in a LinkedIn post, he added: “Since the announcement of Pillar 2, the reclassification of cannabis in April and the announcement of a regulation from the BMEL, we have also worked intensively with universities, scientists, doctors and other institutions on model projects in Germany.
“Today was the ‘big day’ and we can finally go public with our consortium of Prof. Dr. Kirsten Müller-Vahl and Prof. Dr. Heino Stöver, with whom we were able to convince the cities of Frankfurt am Main and Hanover to set up pilot projects with us over the next 5 years to collect data on the possible effects of a regulated levy.”
Hanover
In tandem, the city of Hanover, supported by the Clinic for Psychiatry, Social Psychiatry and Psychotherapy at Hanover Medical School, announced plans to launch a similar study, which will also be supplied by Sanity Group.
The five-year study will recruit 4000 participants to study the effect of regulated cannabis sales on individual consumer behavior, alongside the impact on health, youth protection and the illicit market.
It is set to start at the same time as Frankfurt, and it will be supported by the Frankfurt University of Applied Sciences, while a comparative study will be conducted with members of the Cannabis Social Club Hannover e.V. (CSC).
Participants must be residents of Hanover aged between 18 and 21, and similarly will be required to complete regular surveys.
Unlike the Frankfurt pilot, all participants will receive a pseudonymised ID card that will be used to determine beyond doubt which cannabis quantities were purchased at which point of sale in the current month via a QR code which will be scanned at the point of sale in the three participating stores.
The key aim will be to gather data on the effects of legal sales on the frequency of consumption, the change in the selection of the THC content of the purchased products or a switch to products with less health damage.
As such, participating staff will receive training enabling them to offer advice to consumers and intervene when participants display risky or dangerous behavior.
What about Pillar 2?
While these recent announcements, which follow similar statements of intent from the city of Wiesbaden in mid-August, the regulation enabling them to launch by their intended date of early 2025 is not yet in place.
Pillar 2, which was first announced in the summer of 2023, was the traffic light coalition’s response to pushback from the European Commission regarding their initial plans to launch a full commercial adult use market.
Reports suggest that the EC had informed the German government that these plans would violate numerous EU laws like the Shengen Agreement, potentially putting the country under threat of infringement proceedings.
The architects of the bill then proposed two separate ‘pillars’ which would still aim to achieve its key goals without violating EU law, the second of which would enable the launch of pilot projects for a limited duration in order to scientifically study the impacts on various areas.
In the April draft bill, titled the ‘Consumer Cannabis Science Responsibility Ordinance’ (KCanWV), the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Food (BLE) assigned itself as the responsible authority for permits, monitoring and implementing regulations.
Since cannabis is no longer classified as a narcotic following the passage of Pillar 1, the responsibility for overseeing cannabis model projects would shift from BfArM (the Federal Institute for Drugs and Medical Devices), which traditionally handles narcotics-related matters, to the BLE.
However, the BLE is still missing two permanent positions, which would enable it to actually start processing applications for these model projects.
German cannabis lawyer Kai-Friedrich Niermann suggested that ‘as soon as these positions have been created, the regulation should come into force.’
While it was initially planned that a separate secondary law would have to be implemented to launch Pillar 2, as Business of Cannabis reported in May, it was suggested that it may be regulated under the current CanG law’s research clause, meaning a separate law will not need to be passed to push it through.
This may no longer be the case, Mr Neirmann continued: “BMEL also does not assume that it is politically desirable to implement the model projects via this research clause. The research clause is intended for experiments with new varieties of industrial hemp, or as part of novel food procedures.
“If each model region does its own project, and all with different rules, you will lose the overview. I assume that corresponding applications under § 2 Abs. 4 KCanG will not be approved. In order to be able to carry out legally secure model projects, further legal measures must be taken. This is necessary in order to ensure that consumers and commercial providers can act in accordance with the law within the framework of the KCanG without having to fear investigative measures.”
