(3 Jan 2022) LEAD IN
Start-ups across Germany are preparing for the legalisation of cannabis for private use and sale in Germany.
The new German government has announced it will work towards legalising the sale of cannabis to adults in licensed stores, but the police union is sceptical.
STORY-LINE
Row after row of cannabis plants at a cannabis plantation site near Dresden, Germany.
These were planted in November with the first harvest due in January.
The leaves will be turned into cannabis flour and used in legal medical marijuana products.
It will be the first legal, large-scale harvest of cannabis on German soil.
The facility is located inside a former slaughterhouse and the security is strict.
The company behind the plantation is called Demecan.
The Berlin-based company was one of three to win tenders by the German cannabis agency to produce cannabis in Germany. The two other companies are still working on their production.
“It is actually something very new. It is a unique facility that we have here in Germany. One of the only, actually, German facilities to cultivate medicinal cannabis,” says Constantin von der Groeben, managing director of Demecan
“And what we see here is our first batch of medicinal cannabis that we are currently cultivating. This facility will then, next year, output one tone of dried cannabis flour. So, a thousand kilograms.”
Medical cannabis products were legalised by the Federal Government in Germany in 2016.
But the new government, under Chancellor Olaf Scholz, that took over in December 2021, wants to go a step further and legalise the sale of cannabis for recreational use to adults in specialised, licensed shops.
It would be similar to the legislation that is in place in Canada and some US states.
In Berlin, several start-ups with a cannabis focus have been founded over the last few years.
One is the Sanity Group which specialises in medical cannabis products as well as self-care products containing cannabis CBD oil, which is extracted from the cannabis plant.
Fabian Friede, co-founder of Sanity Group, welcomes the move towards legalisation.
“So, I think overall, on the macro level, the direction is the right one. I think moving towards recreational use of cannabis is awesome. Also, easing up prescription of medicinal cannabis is awesome,” he says.
“But as you already said, it is all about the details. And therefore, I think we are super curious, and the waiting time is the hardest because we would love to start preparing and of course, we do that already. Preparing in every direction, because we don’t know exactly in which direction it is going.”
The new German government consists of three parties in a coalition: the Social democratic party, the Green Party, and the Liberal Free Democrats party.
Before the parties started governing together, they agreed on a coalition contract of over 170 pages which is where the move towards legalisation of cannabis for recreational use is set out.
The documents specifies that licensed shops will be allowed to sell cannabis to adults, but apart from that there are not many details.
There is also no firm time-plan, but since the government has a mandate period of four years, it is implied that it is the longest possible time frame.
Finn Haensel (GERMAN spelling Hänsel), is the other founder of the Sanity group:
“There will be more start-ups. There will be more companies. There will be a whole industry, a sector being around. From regulation, from delivery to the dispensaries, to the logistics,” he says.
Friede says the concerns will need to be addressed in the final legislation.
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