DAS GOOT The legal German cannabis market is projected to reach an estimated $4.6 billion in value by 2034 according to a new market analysis by researchers at The Niche Research. The market analysis predicts that Germany’s legal cannabis market will experience a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 17.2% between 2024 and 2034.
Germany implemented the first provisions of its national adult-use cannabis legalization law on April 1st, and the home cultivation sector is already increasing in size at an exponential rate. According to a recent survey by Pronova BKK, 51% selected “Yes, I can imagine having my own cannabis to grow at home” when asked about home cultivation. Another 40% of ‘occasional’ cannabis consumers also selected that option in the survey.
A separate survey by YouGov found that 7% of surveyed German adults have already purchased cannabis seeds or clones, and another 11% reported that they will in the future. Cannabis seed banks across Europe have reported a significant sales spike due to German home cultivation legalization.
Medical cannabis was already a huge industry in Germany prior to adult-use legalization, with the country being home to Europe’s largest medical cannabis market. However, part of the CanG law involved the removal of cannabis from Germany’s Narcotics List, and with it, caps on domestic medical cannabis production. Germany imported a record 32,398kg of medical cannabis products in 2023, up 26.6% from 2022.
One could easily argue that the biggest winner of German recreational legalization so far is the nation’s medical cannabis industry. Doctors can more easily prescribe medical cannabis in Germany thanks to the CanG law, and the medical cannabis supply chain is more streamlined than ever. The changes are expected to boost Germany’s medical cannabis base from 0.03% to 1% of Germany’s population in the coming years.
Previous projections for Germany’s emerging cannabis industry include one by Heinrich Heine University Dusseldorf which estimated that adult-use legalization will create 27,000 new jobs in Germany, although that projection may prove to be too conservative as time goes along.
Consider the fact that North Rhine-Westphalia alone is planning on permitting up to 3,000 social cannabis clubs, each able to serve up to 500 members. Every one of those social clubs will create jobs, and that is just one sector of the industry in one region of Germany. If the nation’s medical cannabis industry continues to surge as social clubs and regional pilot projects launch this year, the economic potential of Germany’s emerging industry will be enormous.
Germany’s cannabis industry is currently estimated to be worth nearly 1.2 billion euros according to Euromonitor International. Euromonitor estimates that the emerging global cannabis industry is currently worth 51.4 billion euros, with that figure estimated to top 60 billion in 2025.