Cannabis in Post-War Germany

## The Situation After 1945

After the end of the Second World War, Germany entered a period of legal transition. The Allied occupation forces assumed control of the legal system and repealed numerous laws from the Nazi era. However, the Opium Act of 1929, which had regulated cannabis since the 1920s, remained largely in force. Cannabis played virtually no social role in the immediate post-war period – the population was preoccupied with reconstruction, and the consumption of psychoactive substances was essentially limited to alcohol and tobacco.

Hemp as an industrial crop had a long tradition in Germany stretching back to the Middle Ages. Cultivation had even been state-sponsored during the war years, as hemp fibres were needed for ropes, uniform fabrics and other military purposes. After 1945, however, industrial hemp cultivation declined sharply – partly due to competition from synthetic fibres, partly due to the growing international stigmatisation of the cannabis plant as a whole.

## The 1950s and 1960s: Calm Before the Storm

During the economic miracle years, cannabis was virtually invisible in West German society. The conservative Adenauer era was characterised by an authoritarian social ethos in which drug use beyond alcohol and tobacco was considered deviant. Alcohol, by contrast, enjoyed a deeply rooted cultural privileged status: beer and wine were regarded as foodstuffs, the after-work beer an unquestioned part of working life.

This asymmetric treatment of alcohol and cannabis has historical roots that extend far beyond the post-war period. While alcohol had been embedded in European culture for centuries and represented a significant economic force, cannabis was perceived as a foreign substance associated with subcultures deemed threatening.

It was only with the student movement of the late 1960s that cannabis entered public consciousness in the Federal Republic. Young people, influenced by the American counterculture, began consuming cannabis as a symbol of protest against what they perceived as the stuffiness of post-war society. The state's response followed the pattern already established in the United States: tightening rather than education.

## The Narcotics Act of 1971

The decisive turning point came in 1971 with the passage of the Betäubungsmittelgesetz (BtMG, Narcotics Act). The new law replaced the outdated Opium Act and was heavily modelled on the international conventions of the United Nations – particularly the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs of 1961. Cannabis was classified in the BtMG as a non-marketable narcotic, placing it under the same regime as heroin and cocaine.

The classification of cannabis in the strictest category of the BtMG was scientifically barely justifiable. The Indian Hemp Drugs Commission had already documented the relative harmlessness of moderate cannabis use in 1894, and contemporary studies likewise provided no evidence of a danger that would justify equating it with opiates. The decision was primarily politically motivated: international pressure from the US within the framework of the War on Drugs and fear of a youth culture perceived as uncontrollable were the driving forces.

## Social Consequences of Criminalisation

The criminalisation of cannabis through the BtMG had far-reaching social consequences. Hundreds of thousands of predominantly young people came into conflict with the law. An entry in the Federal Central Register for a cannabis offence could permanently impair education and career prospects. The stigmatisation of cannabis users as criminals became entrenched in public consciousness.

At the same time, the consumption of alcohol – which by medical criteria is a significantly more dangerous substance – remained not only legal but culturally accepted and economically promoted. This discrepancy between the legal treatment of cannabis and alcohol was described by critics as arbitrary and scientifically untenable. Alcohol-related deaths exceed cannabis-related health harms by a large factor, yet cannabis remained the criminalised substance for decades.

## The Long Road to Reform

It would take over fifty years before the German legislature fundamentally revised the criminalisation of cannabis. While there were initial reform approaches in the 1990s – the Federal Constitutional Court ruled in 1994 that possession of small quantities of cannabis for personal use did not necessarily have to be punished – genuine liberalisation only came with the Cannabis Consumption Act (KCanG) of 2024.

The post-war history of cannabis in Germany is thus an example of how political decisions made on an insufficient scientific basis can cause social harm across generations. Criminalisation did not prevent consumption but damaged countless lives and undermined the trust of young people in the proportionality of state action.