Since cannabis was approved for medical and scientific purposes in 2017, Germany has imported around 57 tons of the drug. This emerges from a response from the Ministry of Finance to a request from the FDP parliamentary group, which the „Spiegel” first reported on Friday. Statutory and private health insurance companies recorded sales of more than 588 million euros with cannabis medicines between 2017 and 2021. Almost 94 million euros in sales taxes were incurred, as the Ministry of Finance listed.

The largest supplier by the middle of the year was Canada with 21.6 tons of cannabis, followed by the Netherlands and Denmark. „The numbers show that there is already a functioning, legal market worldwide,” said FDP MP Maximilian Mordhorst to „Spiegel”. Germany could participate in this market if cannabis were fully legalized quickly. According to the federal government’s drug commissioner, Burkhard Blienert (SPD), the traffic light coalition intends to present a corresponding draft law at the end of the year or early 2023