EU medical cannabis market: Germany imported more than 50 tonnes in Q1 2026

Why one German quarter matters across the EU

On the figures reported by Newsweed from Germany’s medicines regulator, Germany brought in at least 50.539 tonnes of medical cannabis products in the first quarter of 2026. Add the previous three quarters and the rolling 12-month total rises above 218 tonnes, a scale that keeps Germany at the centre of the European Union medical cannabis economy.

The scale is easiest to grasp through a few benchmark figures:

That matters because Germany’s medical cannabis supply chain has not been built overnight. The primary source says cannabis has been available through pharmacies in Germany since 2017, and what began as a relatively limited patient-access programme has grown into a mature, internationalised market supplied by producers from several countries.

Seen from the EU level, the story is less about one quarter in isolation and more about the logistics footprint needed to feed that demand:

The first quarterly decline since early 2024

The quarter was still notable for another reason: it interrupted a run of uninterrupted growth. Trade coverage based on the same BfArM dataset said Germany’s import volume fell from 60.8 tonnes in the previous quarter to about 50.5 tonnes in Q1 2026, marking the first quarter-on-quarter decline since early 2024.

Set against the prior quarter, the shift looks like this:

What was once a relatively limited patient-access programme has been transformed into a mature and highly internationalised industry.

Newsweed, summarising the German market's development

That drop should not be mistaken for a weak market. A quarter above 50 tonnes remains exceptionally large by European standards, and the rolling annual total above 218 tonnes suggests that Germany is still absorbing imported product at a pace unmatched elsewhere in the region. The more plausible reading is that the market may be entering a more complicated phase, in which import growth no longer rises in a straight line.

How legal reform changed the supply picture

The primary source argues that the softer Q1 figure may partly reflect changes inside Germany itself. To understand why imports may be flattening without disappearing, the recent sequence of reforms matters:

The key policy change was CanG, Germany’s Cannabis Act, which the primary source says removed the production quotas that had previously constrained commercial cultivation. Since then, domestic production capacity has continued to expand, allowing local producers to meet a larger share of patient demand. That is the central explanation offered for why imports were lower in Q1 2026 than in the revised figures at the end of 2025.

Three other changes help explain why the supply picture is no longer as simple as import volumes alone:

• Home grow has been legal for adults in Germany since April 2024, with a limit of up to three plants.
• Cultivation associations have been allowed since July 2024 to grow and distribute cannabis to registered members under strict rules.
• Germany has already approved more than 430 cultivation associations nationwide.
• The primary source says the precise impact of home grow and clubs on medical cannabis sales remains uncertain, but both clearly widen the legal ecosystem beyond pharmacy supply alone.

Those reforms also pushed Germany into the wider Cannabis Legalization Overview: Global Legal Status debate, but their immediate market effect is practical rather than symbolic. More demand can now be met domestically or outside the traditional pharmacy-only pathway, even if nobody has yet put a precise number on how much demand has shifted.

At EU level, that means import dependence can soften even while overall market activity remains high:

Why Germany still functions as the EU gateway

Imports are still international in composition even as Germany develops more local supply. According to Hanfjournal’s breakdown of Q1 2026 import origins, Canadian producers supplied about 26,753 kilograms, or roughly 53% of the total, preserving Canada’s leading role in Germany’s market.

That weight is one reason companies view Germany as more than a single national opportunity. In May, MJBizDaily reported that Organigram sees Germany as a launchpad for European expansion, reflecting how one large import market can influence planning across the EU.

A simple comparison shows why Germany now sets the reference point:

The wider policy backdrop makes that concentration even more striking. A summary of the 2026 European Drug Report says cannabis remains Europe’s most-used illicit substance and that the market is becoming more complex; we explored those tensions in our earlier reporting on the EU drug report. At the same time, other parts of the continent’s cannabis economy are moving toward tighter controls, as seen in Europe tightens the net around cannabis flowers and food products.

For patients, pharmacies and exporters, that leaves Germany in an unusual position within the EU landscape:

The next pressure point may be reimbursement

For now, the safest reading is that imports remain the cornerstone of Germany’s medical market, but they are no longer the only moving part. Domestic cultivation, home grow and club-based access all create new ways for adult consumers or patients to source cannabis, even if the exact degree of substitution is still unknown.

The uncertainties are not only agricultural. Policy over reimbursement could still alter purchasing patterns if cannabis flowers become harder to obtain through Germany’s statutory health insurance system. The German Cannabis Association argued in a submission on the draft GKV savings law that cutting reimbursement would be medically counterproductive and could raise costs, not reduce them — a dispute that surfaced publicly when Germany’s Bundestag first debated a reimbursement cut-off for cannabis flowers.

For readers tracking what the latest import data does and does not show, the core answers are these: