European Union To Establish Adult-Use Cannabis Pathways For Member States
September 29, 2025
With increasing numbers of countries embracing cannabis, the European Union is launching a toolkit to help national policy-makers frame their adult-use legislation.
In doing so, it is aligning with the continent’s changing cannabis landscape as Germany, the Netherlands, Malta, Czechia, Luxembourg and non-EU neighbour Switzerland, all develop their own recreational cannabis infrastructure.
It is also in tune with an acknowledgement by United Nations bodies that punitive prohibition has failed and needs to be replaced with a harm-reduction approach to drug control.
Created by the European Union Drugs Agency (EUDA), the toolkit is to be known as Cannapol, and is designed to deliver an ‘evidence-based’ approach to continental cannabis liberalisation.
Harm-Reduction Approach
EUDA says its creation is the result of ‘changing public opinion’ and a focus on a harm reduction approach to drug use.
The development has been welcomed by Michael Greif, Managing Director of the German Cannabis Business Association (BvCW).
He told Business of Cannabis: “The Cannapol project marks a careful step into the right direction for European cannabis regulation.
“While drug policy is a sensitive matter, traditionally reserved to the national regulatory autonomy of Member States, the EU is supporting national efforts through data collection, capacity-building, best-practice identification, as well as co-operation and information exchanges.
“The Cannapol project thereby provides a great opportunity to shape evidence-based policy-making in collaboration between regulators, researchers and other market and civil society participants.”
He did go on to say that the EUDA’s limited competence in the wider EU bureaucracy means Cannapol could be viewed as a ‘promising box-ticking exercise’
He added: “It does represent a component of evidence-based policy making which is in line with accelerating regulatory developments at the EU level.”
EUDA has so far given little indication of the shape of the evolving project. In its response to Business of Cannabis, it stated that it will examine the pros and cons of both ‘home-grown’ and ‘retail markets’ (see below).
Adult-Use – Not Medical
Spawned from the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction, EUDA was launched last year with an increased budget and remit.
It launched Cannapol in June at a two-day meeting with experts from EU Member States and its appointed project partners, RAND Europe and the Trimbos Instituut.
During the first year of the three-year project, these partners will undertake a data-gathering exercise which EUDA say ‘will involve approaching some 50 individuals or organisations, across 10-12 countries, to understand the pragmatics of existing or future policy implementation’.
This point was pursued by Stephen Murphy, Co-Founder and CEO of Europe’s leading events, media and data business Prohibition Partners.
“We welcome any attempt to create a harmonised and evidence-led framework for cannabis reform across Europe, but for Cannapol to be effective, it must reflect the realities of the cannabis sector,” he said.
“So far, the engagement process has been vague. Despite repeated offers from industry to contribute insights, there has been little clarity on who is being consulted or how stakeholder feedback will be integrated into the toolkit.
“Regulatory frameworks do not operate in a vacuum. They evolve in response to real-world market dynamics. In countries like Switzerland, regulators have worked closely with businesses, patients and civil society to co-develop practical and forward-looking models.
“If Cannapol is to avoid becoming a well-intentioned box-ticking exercise, it must ensure that dialogue with the industry is not just symbolic but substantive.
“We hope EUDA and its partners will recognise that the success of any policy framework depends on building it with those who are shaping the market every day.”
September 29, 2025
No Comments
September 29, 2025
No Comments
Two-Thirds of EU Nations Back Adult-Use Cannabis
EUDA says it envisages Cannapol as the roadmap for member states looking to develop evidence-based, adult-use cannabis policies – it is not briefed to examine medical cannabis.
Cannapol will include analysis on the potential ways of structuring recreational cannabis legislation using homegrown examples from existing EU states, according to EUDA.
It will examine the benefits and pitfalls of using evidence from across the Atlantic, where it says the evaluation metrics of some of the recreational changes in the Americas have been poorly chosen.
Closer to home, it will focus on some of the challenges reforming nations face, such as cultivation locations, banking, production volumes and whether smoking should be permitted.
EUDA also wants Cannapol to provide a ‘legal framework’ for those countries that have no wish, as of now, to progress with recreational cannabis reform.
Recent research by EUDA found that respondents in over two-thirds of the EU member states – 19 out of 27 – are in favour of recreational cannabis regulation.
It also reports that across the EU, 53% of respondents are in favour of some form of regulation, although this number is down by some nine per cent over the last three years.
A new paper by the United Nations Development Programme, entitled ‘Development Dimensions of Drug Policy: Assessing New Challenges, Uncovering Opportunities, and Addressing Emerging Issues’ highlights the systemic failings of existing punitive, global, drug-control systems.
It contends the reform of these models is not only inevitable, but already happening and highlights how more than 500 million people already live in legal cannabis jurisdictions.
EUDA and Business of Cannabis Exchanges
The EUDA provided Business of Cannabis with a lengthy and occasionally oblique statement on the perceived goals of Cannapol, which can be read in full below.
It also declined our request for an interview with its Executive Director, Alexis Goosdeel, who had previously stated how the EU’s approach to drugs is ‘strong and explicit in relation to a human-rights-based approach, based on harm reduction and the active involvement of civil society’.
Neither Rand nor the Trimbos Instituut were prepared to comment on the project, referring us back to EUDA. In response to Business of Cannabis, a spokesperson told us:
Can you provide a summary of what Cannapol is and what it hopes to achieve?
“Cannapol is one of several major new projects commissioned following the new mandate and budget of the EUDA.
“Over recent years the Agency has had several requests for assistance and advice from EU countries interested in changing their legislation with regard to recreational use of cannabis (Cannapol will not look at medical or industrial uses), at a time of changing public opinion.
“Those EU countries, and Switzerland, have insisted on careful scientific monitoring of several indicators to understand the impact of their regulatory changes.
“The Cannapol project takes this interest in the effects of regulatory changes and extends it so its toolkit will be applicable to any policy change – decreasing or increasing control measures, home-grow or retail markets – with its core philosophy being that proposed changes should have clearly expressed goals and actions, which should then be rigorously scientifically monitored by using appropriate indicators and datasets.
“Monitoring indicators of unintended consequences is also recommended, and – as requested by several MS already – core indicators with common criteria used by several countries will allow cross-comparisons, for each to better understand if a change might be affected by domestic policy or perhaps by general international trends.
“The practical advice of the project will include a database of implementation experiences, tools for devising logic models of actions in line with the objectives, and identifying options for suitable indicators in national datasets to monitor the progress and impact of those actions.
“Research of major changes in the Americas has shown that most indicators were not compared against credible control groups, datasets were not collected with the intention of use for evaluation, and the most popular indicator for evaluations was that of cannabis use rates even if that was not a primary objective of the change.
“Implementation challenges to date have included identifying suitable locations for cultivation, supplier bank accounts, producing enough stock to meet demand, balancing the demand for and the health effects of smoked cannabis, surveying a range of indicators in order to establish a monitoring baseline, identifying indicators that may show effects on the illegal market, considering how to ensure road safety, etc – and all of these within a defined legislative period, after which a new government may make significant changes.
“All this knowledge and experience can also be applied to proposals for cannabis policy changes within a legal framework that does not permit any recreational use of cannabis, whether increasing or decreasing penalties or rehabilitative measures for offenders.
“With this tool EUDA aims to establish an evaluative culture applicable to drug policy changes and ensure preparedness for such evaluations.”
How long will it take to draft the toolkit?
“The European Cannabis Policy Toolkit will serve as a resource on our website and will remain available for an open-ended period.
“The contract supporting the development of the toolkit is for up to three years, but the toolkit project is expected to continue after that. It is expected that elements of the toolkit will become gradually available on the EUDA website, there will be several iterations to reach its final structure and format.”
Can you also inform as to which organisations will be approached by your partners Rand and & Trimbos?
“The consortium plans a data-gathering exercise in the first year of the project that will approach up to 50 individuals or organisations across 10-12 countries, to understand the pragmatics of existing or future policy implementation.
“The data-gathering exercise will feed into the deliverables of different work streams (implementation experiences, the development of an indicator database and other resources for policymakers/implementers).
“No final list of research participants has been drawn up at this stage, this will be part of the research decision-making process in line with methodological criteria for mixed-method research.
“Research participants will mainly be the toolkit end users, and will likely include government departments and institutions, but are likely to include a few NGOs in the recreational space, user groups, cultivation clubs where they exist, and other relevant civil society organisations.
“Furthermore, additional research participants may include treatment organisations/systems or police and prosecutor offices.
“We understand you have many questions, and we value your interest in the project. As we are still in the early stages, there are naturally some areas where more elaborated answers are not yet available, and speculation would be inappropriate.”
Search
RECENT PRESS RELEASES
Related Post
