How Many Legal Medical Cannabis Patients Does Germany Have?

A common question related to Germany’s emerging legal cannabis industry that I see asked online, and hear in person, relates to how many medical cannabis patients the nation’s market serves. The answer to the question ‘how many German medical cannabis patients are there?’ is not as straightforward as some may think due to how the nation’s medical cannabis industry operates.

Medical cannabis is dispensed by German pharmacies, and patients have the option to self-pay or to be reimbursed by insurance companies. Reimbursements are easier to track because of the paper trail that such transactions create. Self-pay transactions are trickier. However, a recent newsletter by leading international cannabis economist Beau Whitney, founder of Whitney Economics, provides some reliable data.

In Beau Whitney’s newsletter, Whitney Wire, he describes how Germany has traditionally had a strong legal medical cannabis market. Even before the adoption of the nation’s CanG law in April 2024, which removed cannabis from Germany’s Narcotics List, Germany was already home to the largest legal medical cannabis market in Europe.

But after the CanG law’s adoption, safe access greatly improved for German medical cannabis patients, and thanks in large part to the rise of medical cannabis telemedicine, Germany’s legal patient base has increased exponentially.

“There has been a consistent number of between 200k – 300k medical patients.” Beau Whitney writes. “As a result of this new innovation, there is now an additional 500k – 600k self-paying consumers participating in the legal market.”

“When combined with 100k cultivation association members, there is approximately 800k legal consumers in the German market right now. For perspective, 800k consumers represents between 10% and 20% of the total market, while the supply and capacity at the end of 2024 represented nearly 15% of all of the supply that the market needs.” Whitney stated.

According to the most recent data published on BCAv’s website, 215 cultivation association applications have been approved so far, out of 626 submitted applications. It is worth noting that not all of the approved cultivation associations are fully operational right now. Presumably, some are in the early stages of launching after receiving approval.

In addition to medical cannabis patients making legal purchases through German pharmacies and/or joining member-based cultivation associations, many adult cannabis consumers in Germany are cultivating their own cannabis in their private residences. Starting on April 1st, 2024, adults in Germany can cultivate up to three plants in their private residences.

The results of a new scientific study, led by Dr. Mira Lehberger and Prof. Dr. Kai Sparke from the Department of Horticultural Economics at Geisenheim University, provide insight into how popular home cultivation is in Germany post-legalization.

The scientific study involved a survey, conducted in December 2024, of 1,500 adults. Study participants were selected from “an existing panel to ensure representation of all age groups and regions of origin (both federal states and urban/rural)” according to initial reporting by Deutscher Hanfverband (DHV), and subjects were divided ‘roughly equally’ between men and women.

Below are key findings from the study:

• 47% of survey respondents expressed support for legal home cultivation
• 46.3% indicated agreement with the statement “The legalization of private cannabis cultivation reduces illegal activities in Germany.”
• 44% of participants see legal home cultivation as ‘an opportunity for better quality control’
• 41.1% see legal home cultivation as ‘an opportunity for greater sustainability’
• One in ten participants indicated that they had already legally cultivated cannabis post-legalization
• 11% of participants who had not cultivated cannabis ‘could imagine’ doing so in the future
• A majority of participants who stated they had cultivated legal cannabis were male (58.5%)

“Growing supplies and seeds were purchased both online and in-store, but specialized online retailers were used most frequently.” stated DHV in its local reporting.

According to DHV’s coverage of the study’s findings, “The median cultivation costs were €30 per plant and €1 per gram of cannabis, which are significantly lower than the prices of cannabis on the black market or medical cannabis in pharmacies.”

A previous YouGov poll in Germany found that 7% of poll participants had already purchased cannabis seeds or cuttings/clones at the time of the polling (May 2024). In addition to the 7% of poll participants indicating that they had already purchased cannabis genetics for their home gardens, another 11% of poll participants responded that they planned to purchase cannabis genetics in the future.

To further economist Beau Whitney’s point mentioned earlier in this article, most of Germany’s cannabis consumer base still relies on the unregulated market. According to data published by Statistisches Bundesamt, Germany’s total population was 84,669,326 at the end of 2023 (the most recent data available). Of that, an estimated 83.1% of the population was of legal cannabis age (18+), or roughly 70.36 million people.

Now, take into consideration data from Germany’s Epidemiological Addiction Survey, which found that roughly 8.8% of Germany’s population reported consuming cannabis at least once within the last year. Applying that percentage to the number of adults in Germany, the total potential legal cannabis consumer base in Germany is nearly 6.2 million people, and that is likely a low-end estimate because presumably some amount of consumers refrained from admitting to the government that they are cannabis consumers out of fear of persecution.

The math is clear – Germany’s legal cannabis market is just scraping the surface from the perspective of gaining potential market share. Until EU agreements are modernized to allow Germany to implement a robust legal commerce model like in Canada, and equally important, domestic German lawmakers adopt such a model when allowed to, the unregulated market will continue to thrive in Germany.

One of the professed goals of German legalization is to sufficiently combat the unregulated market to boost public health outcomes. As demonstrated by a recent data analysis from Canada’s market, consumers and patients will transition to a regulated market when given consistent options to do so, assuming the market provides the types of products that they want.

However, as long as legal purchasing options and product types remain limited in Germany, the European nation will continue to fail at achieving its stated cannabis public policy goals.