Berlin, 02/02/2023: One of the significant advantages of a legal sale of cannabis as a stimulant is that the product quality can be comprehensively controlled. Thus, significant health hazards, for example from extenders and synthetic additives, are avoided and the health of consumers is protected.

The German Cannabis Business Association (BvCW) has now proposed a new “purity law” with concrete quality standards. This defines product characteristics such as purity and active ingredient content, production and further processing methods, as well as the necessary testing procedures. Of course, issues such as pesticide and heavy metal contamination, microbiology and water activity also play a role here.

Dirk Heitepriem, departmental coordinator for recreational cannabis regulation and vice president of the BvCW, makes this clear:
“Only with the highest and controlled quality can we successfully push back the illegal market and thus achieve the goals of the federal government for the protection of health and young people. To implement this, the cannabis industry in Germany has sat down with experts from cultivation, laboratory and food control and presented initial proposals for comprehensive quality requirements for cannabis as a stimulant. This is the first public draft for Germany for nationwide quality standards of stimulant cannabis. Scientific findings, relevant procedures and standards that have also been tested with other stimulant products were consulted and contributed.”

Jürgen Neumeyer, Managing Director of the BvCW adds:
“With our quality requirements, we propose a purity law for pleasure cannabis. The standards, measures, controls and limits we have developed are based on narrow, proven criteria and practiced regulations. They serve as a possible guideline for quality control of pleasure cannabis with an upcoming regulation. It is important to have a uniform implementation throughout Germany and not a regional patchwork, as for example with medical cannabis or CBD products. Practicable implementation for start-ups and small production and processing companies must be taken into account. In order to be able to compete meaningfully as a cannabis economy against the black market in the future, the quality guarantee – in addition to pricing, product variety and availability – is an essential unique selling point.”

The BvCW is open to all stakeholders involved for exchange.

The position paper “Quality requirements for cannabis for consumption purposes” can be found here. For medicinal cannabis, the even higher pharmaceutical standards (especially GMP) continue to apply.

Further documents of the cannabis economy on the regulatory discussion of stimulant cannabis:
ELEMENTE Vol. 27: Position Paper Home Cultivation of Cannabis as a Recreational Product
ELEMENTE Vol.  26: Position Paper Track & Trace
ELEMENTE Vol. 25: Synopsis of association position papers
ELEMENTE Vol. 24: Position Paper on Supply Chains and Production Conditions
ELEMENTE Vol. 23: Position Paper on Prevention & Risk Minimization
ELEMENTE Vol. 22: Cannabis Regulation – Collection of mistakes and lessons learned from other countries
ELEMENTE Vol. 20: Key issues paper on stimulant regulation – Towards a German cannabis agenda

An overview of the ELEMENTE series of publications can be found here.