Are Drugs Legal in Germany? Cannabis, Penalties, and Driving

Are drugs legal in Germany? Mostly no. Cannabis is the single exception: since April 2024, adults can possess and grow small amounts for personal use. Every other recreational drug, including cocaine, heroin, MDMA, and amphetamines, remains illegal under the Narcotics Act (Betäubungsmittelgesetz, or BtMG), and the penalties scale sharply with quantity and intent.¹

What’s Legal and What Isn’t

German drug law now splits into three tracks. Cannabis has its own statute, the Cannabis Act (Cannabisgesetz, CanG), which permits limited personal use. The BtMG still governs every other controlled substance and treats production, trafficking, possession, and consumption without authorization as crimes. A third law, the New Psychoactive Substances Act (NpSG), targets synthetic and designer drugs that are chemically distinct from scheduled substances but mimic their effects.²

The CanG did not create a retail market. There are no cannabis shops. What the law allows is personal possession, home growing, and membership in nonprofit cultivation clubs.³

Cannabis Rules for Adults

If you are 18 or older, you can carry up to 25 grams of dried cannabis in public and keep up to 50 grams at home. You can grow up to three plants at your residence, provided children and other unauthorized people cannot access them. Sharing what you grow with anyone else is not permitted.³

Going slightly over the limits is an administrative offense: 25 to 30 grams in public, or 50 to 60 grams at home, is handled like a traffic infraction. Above 30 grams in public or 60 grams at home, you face criminal prosecution.³

Public consumption is permitted in most places, with exclusion zones. You cannot consume cannabis near anyone under 18, in pedestrian areas between 7 a.m. and 8 p.m., or within 100 meters of a school, kindergarten, playground, youth facility, or publicly accessible sports facility. The 100 meters are measured from the entrance.³

Cannabis Social Clubs

Since July 1, 2024, nonprofit cultivation associations have been legal. Each club is capped at 500 members, all of whom must be at least 18 and have lived in Germany for at least six months. Members aged 21 and older can receive up to 25 grams per day and 50 grams per month. Members aged 18 to 20 can receive up to 25 grams per day but only 30 grams per month, and the THC content is capped at 10 percent. Members may also take home up to 7 seeds or 5 cuttings per month to grow themselves. Consumption on club property, or within 100 meters of its entrance, is not allowed, and clubs cannot distribute cannabis mixed with tobacco, nicotine, or food.³

Penalties for Cocaine, Heroin, MDMA, and Amphetamines

These substances remain squarely under the Narcotics Act. A basic Section 29 offense, which covers unauthorized possession or trafficking, carries up to five years in prison or a fine.

Aggravated conduct draws much stiffer minimums:

Commercial dealing: at least one year in prison under Section 29, Paragraph 3.
Importing or trafficking a “significant quantity”: at least two years under Section 30.
Armed trafficking in significant quantities: at least five years under Section 30a, applying to anyone who carries a weapon or dangerous object while dealing in large amounts.

Distributing drugs to minors also triggers harsher sentencing. Once the minimum sentence passes one year, suspended sentences become difficult to obtain.

Synthetic and Designer Drugs

The NpSG covers bath salts, research chemicals, and other new psychoactive substances that fall outside the BtMG’s schedules. Trafficking, distributing, manufacturing, or importing them carries up to three years in prison. Aggravated cases, including commercial dealing, supplying to minors when the dealer is 21 or older, or endangering someone’s health or life, carry one to ten years.²

The NpSG does not criminalize personal possession or consumption of these substances. Its penalties aim at the supply side. Possession for the purpose of distribution, however, is illegal.

When Prosecutors Can Drop Small-Amount Cases

Section 31a of the BtMG allows prosecutors to drop charges when someone is caught with a small amount of drugs intended solely for personal use, the person’s culpability is minor, and there is no public interest in prosecution.¹ This is not decriminalization. Possession remains a crime; the prosecutor simply has discretion.

What qualifies as a “small amount” varies by federal state and by substance. For heroin, cocaine, and amphetamines, most states set the threshold around 3 grams. Berlin historically treated 15 grams of cannabis as a small amount, while most other states used 6 grams before the 2024 reform made cannabis thresholds largely moot. These numbers are guidance for prosecutors, not guarantees of immunity.

Medical Cannabis

Medical cannabis has been legal in Germany since 2017, and the 2024 reform moved it out of the Narcotics Act into its own statute, the Medical Cannabis Act (Medizinal-Cannabis-Gesetz, MedCanG). Doctors can now issue a standard prescription instead of the older narcotics prescription form.⁴

Patients on statutory health insurance, which covers around 87 percent of the population, can have prescriptions reimbursed under conditions.⁵ Coverage extends to dried flowers, extracts, and finished medications containing dronabinol or nabilone. The patient must have a serious illness, standard treatments must be unavailable or unsuitable, and there must be a reasonable prospect of benefit. For 16 specialties, including general medicine, neurology, psychiatry, and pain medicine, doctors can prescribe without prior insurer approval.

Driving

Legal cannabis use does not mean you can drive after using it. Section 24a of the Road Traffic Act prohibits driving under the influence of psychoactive substances, including THC. Before 2024, courts applied a detection threshold of 1 ng/ml of THC in blood serum, low enough to catch use from days earlier.⁶

After legalization, an expert working group recommended raising the limit to 3.5 ng/ml, roughly comparable to the impairment seen at a blood alcohol level of 0.2 per mille for occasional users. The same group recommended a zero-alcohol rule for drivers who use cannabis, meaning no detectable alcohol can be combined with THC behind the wheel.⁶

For other drugs, there is no threshold. Any detectable level of cocaine, heroin, MDMA, or amphetamines while driving is an offense. Penalties range from fines and license suspension to criminal charges when impairment causes an accident.

Bringing Prescription Controlled Medications Into Germany

If your prescription includes a controlled substance, such as an opioid painkiller, an ADHD stimulant, or a benzodiazepine, you need documentation to bring it in legally.⁷

Traveling from a Schengen country for up to 30 days: you need a certificate under Article 75 of the Schengen Agreement, completed by your doctor and certified by your country’s top regional health authority or a designated body.
Traveling from outside the Schengen area: your doctor must issue a multilingual certificate listing the substance, daily dose, and trip length, authenticated by your home country’s health authority. There is no required form, but the information must be complete.

If you transit through other countries, check each one’s rules separately. There are no uniform international rules for carrying controlled medications in transit, and what Germany permits may not be allowed on the way in.

1
Federal Ministry of Health. Germany Code Narcotic Drugs Act – Act on the Trade in Narcotic Drugs
2
Federal Ministry of Health. New Psychoactive Substances Act
3
Federal Ministry of Health. Frequently Asked Questions on the Cannabis Act
4
Chambers and Partners. Medical Cannabis and Cannabinoid Regulation 2025 – Germany
5
National Center for Biotechnology Information. Health Care in Germany – Health Insurance
6
Federal Ministry for Digital and Transport. THC Limit for Road Traffic
7
Customs online (Zoll.de). Medicinal Products and Narcotics