Germany

Germany has Europe's largest economy and is the second most populous nation in Europe. Like most highly developed nations, Germany is not a major producing nation of drugs such as marijuana, cocaine, or heroin; however, it is a source of synthetic drugs and precursor chemicals for South American cocaine processors. Rates of use in Germany are moderate by European standards. Based on United Nations (UN) estimates, slightly less than 5 percent of the population ages 18–64 use cannabis annually. Less than 1 percent of the adult population use cocaine, methamphetamine, or ecstasy annually, and between 0.15 and 0.30 percent of the population are annual opiate users. As in other western European nations, most opiate users in Germany use heroin.

Germany's policies and legislated control efforts pertaining to the use, possession, trafficking, and cultivation of various narcotics are considerably progressive when compared with many other countries. Only when they are compared with those of nations such as the Netherlands or Switzerland, might Germany's extant narcotics legislation be [Page 314]regarded as moderate/conservative. Germany has drug policies and legislation, for example, which provide for many policies viewed as progressive. These include syringe exchange programs and vending machines, safe-injection rooms, access to both methadone and heroin in addiction-treatment programs for intravenous drug abusers, prosecutor discretion to not prosecute those charged with possession of small amounts of drugs (especially cannabis) for personal use, the production of industrial hemp, as well as treatment alternatives to incarceration for convicted abusers and addicts. These policies sometimes conflict with the aims of nations that seek a more restrictive strategy for dealing with controlled substances, such as those of the United States. German narcotics legislation, however, has been amended to provide for mandatory minimum sentencing for those convicted of severe narcotics-related offenses such as the trafficking and production of significant amounts of a regulated or illicit substance. Such reforms have pleased those nations favoring a more stringent approach.