German officials have released a report on the impact of the nation’s marijuana legalization law, finding that fears from opponents about youth use, traffic safety and more have so far proved largely unfounded. However, the illicit market has not meaningfully diminished under the limited legal regulatory model that has been rolled out in the country to date.
The interim report, which was required under the cannabis law enacted last year, assessed a series of health, public safety and economic factors associated with the end of prohibition.
Among the most notable findings in the document published on Monday is the fact that youth marijuana use has continued to decline, even after possession and home cultivation were legalized for adults and social clubs offering access to members opened.
Further, “no clear changes in the previous trend in cannabis consumption among adults could be observed,” the report, conducted on behalf of the federal Ministry of Health, says, according to a translation.
“The percentage increase in adults who have consumed cannabis in the last 12 months, which has been observed since approximately 2011, is likely to continue…without any drastic changes,” it says.
A separate recent study conducted by German federal health officials also found that rates of marijuana use declined among youth after the country legalized adult-use cannabis, contradicting one of the more common prohibitionist arguments against the reform.
Another finding of the new legalization evaluation concerns traffic safety, with researchers determining that there’s been no meaningful change in incidents on the roadways associated with the policy change.
“In the area of road safety, partial legalization has so far shown no significant changes in self-reported driving under the influence of cannabis or in the number of people killed or injured in road traffic,” the report states.
Early data on the impact of legalization on the illicit market indicates that the law has “not yet made a significant contribution to the displacement of the black market intended by the legislature,” the report found.
One reason for the continued presence of the illegal market could be related to how Germany’s legalization law is being rolled out, with a limited number of social clubs that grow cannabis for members to consume—but without a comprehensive commercial industry that could provide wider access to adults. And even if broad retail launches, it may take time to substantially transition consumers to the legal market, which has been the case in Canada and U.S. states that have enacted the reform.
Hellbound and Down 