How Will Germany’s Recent Election Impact Cannabis Policy?

The partial legalization of cannabis is controversial. After the Bundestag election and Friedrich Merz as the possible new chancellor, the law is again under discussion.

The conservative CDU/CSU and the far-right AfD won the last federal election in Germany in February 2025 by a clear margin. This casts a dark shadow on the cannabis legislation passed in Germany in April '24: Both the CDU and the AfD have already announced that they want to reverse the partial legalization. But the two parties are alone in this. No other parliamentary group in the Bundestag is in favor of reversing the Cannabis Act (CanG). Quite…

How Will Germany’s Recent Election Impact Cannabis Policy?

Germany held a federal election on February 23, 2025, and a new government will be formed now that the election is over. The bad news from the election is that the conservative CDU/CSU party gained the largest percentage of votes (28.52%), and with it the largest number of seats (208). The CDU/CSU party has been historically critical of Germany’s recent cannabis policy modernization changes. However, the good news is that the CDU/CSU party is we…