Eleven German cities interested in cannabis legalization pilot projects

A recent survey conducted by the German daily Die Welt survey of 35 German cities shows that at least 11 cities are willing to participate in future local experiments with the regulated sale of cannabis for recreational purposes, as proposed in April of this year.

11 German cities interested in participating in experiments

Frankfurt am Main was the first region, with Offenbach, to announce its intention to present a joint application as a model region. Shortly afterwards, Munich's Green-Red coalition also submitted a similar application. This displeased the CSU-led state government, which is opposed in principle to experimentation and legalization.

Other cities are also considering applying. Bremen has announced that it is open in principle. Hannover is also «very interested», said a spokeswoman. Bonn is «positively opposed» to the project, while Tübingen, Leipzig and Schwerin may offer to participate in principle, but have yet to make an official decision.

For some cities, it's already clear that they don't want to participate at all. These include Nuremberg, Freiburg, Aachen, Essen and Eisenach.

The following cities have not yet expressed an interest: Hamburg, Cologne, Dortmund, Düsseldorf and Stuttgart. They wish to wait until the exact legal conditions for the federal government's model regions have been established. We can therefore expect the number of interested cities to increase over the coming months.

Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg district, Berlin, had already submitted an application pilot project with the Federal Institute in 2015 and the state of Berlin in 2019. In both cases, this was rejected. The State of Berlin finally sued the authority in 2021. The procedure is still ongoing and could be short-circuited by the arrival of legalization pilot projects.