‘The way is clear’ for Germany’s growing list of municipalities, universities and cannabis businesses to launch model research projects into adult-use cannabis.
Germany’s Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture (BMEL) this week announced that it has officially signed ordinance which will see it become the regulating authority for model projects in the country.
While this will come as a significant relief for the now 27 municipalities federal states which have already expressed an interest in launching such pilots, this ‘important step’ comes with some caveats.
Primarily, BMEL has made it clear that this does not constitute the long awaited ‘Pillar 2’ of Germany’s cannabis liberalisation project, which is now widely expected not to be coming at all.
With anti-cannabis parties extending their poll-lead ahead of February’s snap election, there is growing speculation that this measure could be repealed by the incoming government, piling on the pressure to launch these pilots as soon as possible.
What happened?
As previously reported by Business of Cannabis, under Chapter 1 Section 2 Paragraph 4 of the current CanG Act, ‘anyone who wants to possess, cultivate, produce, import, export, acquire, receive, deliver, pass on cannabis for scientific purposes, extract cannabinoids from the cannabis plant or trade in cannabis for scientific purposes requires a permit’.
