A guide to medical marijuana and recreational use laws across the continent and the United Kingdom.
In April 2024, Germany legalized recreational marijuana, becoming the largest country in Europe to turn green. There are currently 28 EU countries with some form of legalization, whether for medical marijuana or adult use. So for now, the EU market is small when it comes to cannabis sales. This year sales are expected to reach $1.2 billion, according to a report by Prohibition Partners. It is projected to reach $2.6 billion in 2028 and $6 billion in annual sales within a decade, or more than a 400% jump from this year.
Germany, which is the EU’s largest economy and the continent’s largest legal marijuana market with about $500 million in sales last year, is expected to generate just under $1 billion in sales at the end of 2025. The UK, which has not been part of the EU since Brexit in 2020, currently has a legal medical market with about $255 million in annual sales.
Compared to the U.S.—where 40 states have legalized medical use and 24 states permit recreational use—which generated $32 billion in annual legal cannabis sales last year, Europe’s cannabis market is about the size of New Jersey’s marijuana economy. But the potential upside and sensible regulations that allow cannabis to be grown in Spain and Portugal and exported to other countries legally, has created a solid economic thesis for companies to invest hundreds of millions of dollars in the burgeoning EU cannabis industry.
“The growth is slow, but policies are practical,” Beau Whitney, the founder of cannabis data firm Whitney Economics, says of Europe’s legalization rollout. “and they have common sense regulations.”
Here are the cannabis laws across Europe and the United Kingdom.
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