Germany’s Cannabis Act (CanG) has not led to an increase in use among young people, according to new peer-reviewed research adding to the growing body of evidence contradicting the harms predicted by the reform’s critics.
A new study published on July 01, 2026 in the Journal of Health Monitoring by researchers at the Federal Institute of Public Health (BIÖG) and the Robert Koch Institute (RKI), found no statistically significant change in cannabis use among young people since CanG came into force in April 2024.
It comes as the government is examining proposals to restrict Germany’s medical cannabis sector over allegations it is being ‘abused’ by recreational users. Earlier this month, it also moved to restrict patients from accessing medical cannabis through its statutory health insurance scheme, banning flower and imposing a mandatory six-month course of approved medicines before receiving extracts.
The RKI data builds on the state-mandated Ekocan evaluation and additional independent analysis in cutting against the premise on which those restrictions rest.
What does the RKI report show?
Between 2023 and 2025, the years immediately before and after partial legalisation, the data showed no statistically significant change in 12-month cannabis use among female and male adolescents or young women.
In 2025, 4.6% of female adolescents and 7.2% of male adolescents aged 12 to 17 reported using cannabis in the previous 12 months, both marginally lower than in 2023, though not to a statistically significant degree. Among young women aged 18 to 25, prevalence was 18.8%, also broadly flat.
Cannabis use among young men aged 18 to 25, however, rose significantly from 26.9% in 2023 to 31.6% in 2025.
While on the face of it, this appears to confirm critics’ concerns, the authors state explicitly that they believe this is part of a wider trend and not related to partial legalisation.
The rise, they argue, ‘does not represent a new development but rather continues a rising trend that has been observed since 2008’. They cite the Epidemiological Addiction Survey (ESA) which found an increase among 18- to 59-year-olds from 2012 to 2021, with a further rise predicted ‘regardless of any legislative changes.’
“Overall, there are no indications of any short-term effects of partial legalisation on the prevalence of cannabis use among young people,” they concluded.
The result echoes a broader picture Business of Cannabis has tracked since the reform, pointing to stable consumption, a sharp statistical fall in recorded cannabis offences, and no wastewater signal of a post-legalisation surge.
Medical market price collapse
Though the data increasingly supports the conclusion that usage among the general population has remained broadly flat, the latest data from Bloomwell Group’s quarterly cannabis ‘barometer’ suggests that the medical market remains in a state of rapid change.
Drawing on its own six-figure patient and seven-figure prescription volume database, Bloomwell’s latest update shows that the average price of medical cannabis flower fell by roughly €0.50 in the second quarter of 2026 to around €4 a gram, down from roughly €12 in early 2023, with the cheapest flower reaching €2.
Flower priced above €10 a gram has, in Bloomwell’s words, ‘virtually disappeared’ from specialised German pharmacies. The share of flower supplied at under €4 a gram rose from 13.5% in the fourth quarter of 2025 to 71.9% in the second quarter of 2026.
This contrasts sharply with the €19 a gram paid on average for cannabis flower through the statutory health scheme (GKV). As we reported earlier this month, the removal of cannabis flower from the GKV scheme was part of a much broader effort to reduce health insurance spending, and this price disparity gives the controversial measure some context.
Niklas Kouparanis, Bloomwell’s Co-Founder and Chief Executive, argued that chronically ill patients on established medication ‘are now being left out in the cold,’ and that ‘innovation and telemedicine must not be perceived as opponents in the health system, but as reliable partners.’
In the second quarter of 2026, Bloomwell’s patient data shows that the relative quantity of flower ordered was nearly 5000% more than that of the first quarter of 2024, the last full quarter before CanG was enforced.
Since the third quarter of 2025, ordered volumes have risen around 50% each quarter. Roughly 200 tonnes of medical cannabis were imported into Germany in 2025, which Bloomwell estimates at about a quarter of the illicit market.
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Geographical divide persists, but is closing fast
The share of patients relative to population runs 29.6% above the national average in Saarland and 27.6% in Bavaria, against 31.3% below in Brandenburg and 28.3% below in Saxony.
This disparity is beginning to even out, however. Bavaria’s share has fallen from 150.5% above the average before April 2024 to 12.1% above in the year to June 2026, while Saxony-Anhalt has climbed from 83.8% below to just 9.7% below over the same period.
Eastern states are catching up quickest, with patient growth factors per 100,000 inhabitants of 314 in Saxony-Anhalt, 184 in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania and 138 in Brandenburg, against 25 in Saarland and 17 in Bavaria.
The range of medical cannabis flower available reached 1,157 distinct products in the second quarter of 2026, sourced not only from Europe and Canada but from Australia, Asia, South America and Africa.
Non-irradiated flower, favoured by patients and prescribers, rose from 66.2% of supply in the second quarter of 2025 to 98.6% a year later, while average THC content held around 25%.
Of the 271 pharmacies specialised in medical cannabis, Bloomwell reports that 49.6% of patients live more than ten kilometres from the nearest, and six federal states have no more than one, leaving telemedicine and mail-order dispensing to carry supply into the gaps. The patient base is also skewing younger, the most common age band shifting from 33–37 before the reform to 23–27 today.
EUDA raises data concerns
Despite these largely positive findings, the European Union Drugs Agency’s (EUDA) recently published 2026 European Drug Report notes that the data available on the German market may not show the full picture.
It notes that in Germany specifically, treatment trends are ‘affected by the near disappearance of referrals from the criminal justice system following legislation change in February 2024,’.
In essence, court and police referrals, one of the main pipelines that historically fed people into drug treatment, has largely closed since possession was decriminalised.
Any post-reform fall in treatment demand therefore reflects a change in how people arrive at treatment, not necessarily how many need it.
Elsewhere, home-growing activity in Germany, it records, ‘is not systematically monitored, making the scale of uptake unclear’, an admission that the official statistics cannot see what Ekocan identified as the fastest-growing supply channel, with self-cultivation rising from 5.4% to 21.4% of consumers between early 2024 and late 2025.
The agency valued Europe’s cannabis market at more than €12 billion and found cannabis now accounts for a third of all specialist drug treatment admissions across the EU, Norway and Türkiye.
