Cannabis policy reform in Europe: Bottom up rather than top down

While in the Americas cannabis policy reform is taking off, Europe seems to be lagging behind. That is to say, in European nations at the level of national governments – where denial of the changing policy landscape and inertia to act upon calls for change reigns.

At the local level, however, disenchantment with the current cannabis regime gives rise to new ideas. In several countries in Eu­rope, local and regional authorities are looking at regulation, either pressured by grassroots movements – in particular the Cannabis Social Clubs (CSCs) – or due to the involve­ment of criminal groups and public disorder.

This briefing will give an overview of recent developments in Europe. In the Nether­lands, municipalities want to regulate the supply of coffeeshops currently not allowed. In Copen­­hagen (Denmark), and Berlin, Frankfurt-am-Main, Hamburg and Cologne (Ger­many), local au­thorities pro­mote coffeeshop-like dispen­saries with a regu­lated supply. In Spain and Swit­zer­land re­gional and local authorities want to allow Cannabis Social Clubs, while in Belgium, Por­tugal, France andthe UK campaigns for CSCs are gaining momentum.

Key Points:

• European cities and regions that want reform should follow the example set by their predecessors when they con­stituted Euro­pean Cities on Drug Policy (ECDP), advocating a more pragmatic, less prohibitionist drug policy and initiating a set of innovative harm reduction measures.
• Such a network provides opportunities to ex­change experiences and best practices as well as fund­raising and sharing human and financial resources needed for policy change.
• While the ECDP is now defunct after achieving its goals, it is time for an ECDP 2.0 to do the same for the regula­tion of the recreational cannabis market in Europe.
• As happened with harm-reduction, sooner or later the cannabis reform pressure building up from local levels will have to lead to legislative reforms at national levels, and the EU policy framework –and ultimately also the UN conventions – have to accommodate the policy trend towards legal regulation.

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