So-called cannabis clubs will be allowed to sell the drug legally in Germany starting Monday, but in practice it will be some time before the associations get up and running.
Germany legalized cannabis in April, allowing adults to possess 25 grams (0.9 ounces) and cultivate up to three marijuana plants at home.
As the next step in the reform, from July 1 it will be possible to legally obtain weed through regulated “cannabis clubs” in the country.
The associations will be allowed to have up to 500 members each and will be able to distribute up to 50 grams of cannabis per person per month.
Mariana Cannabis, an umbrella organization for around 180 future cannabis clubs across Germany, already has around 20,000 members.
But at the group’s production site in Leverkusen, just north of the western city of Cologne, there are no seeds or cuttings to be seen.
That is because before the clubs can begin operating, they must apply for a licence that can take up to three months to obtain.
“We are impatient, but we still have to wait,” Keno Mennenga, a spokesman for Mariana Cannabis, told AFP.
In Munich, members of the Cantura cannabis club have been paying 25 euros ($27) a month since March, before the first part of the law even came into force.
The club has invested thousands of euros in office space, security and cultivation equipment, according to its CEO, Fabian Baumann.
“We need around eight weeks from cutting to harvesting,” he said. “If everything goes well, we’ll be able to supply cannabis to our members this year. That would be wonderful.”
When launching the first phase of the law in April, the German government insisted that it was not promoting cannabis use but rather seeking to curb the black market for the drug.
“The German model is based on a gradual approach. The idea is to be cautious and to evaluate in real time,” said Ivana Obradovic, an expert with the France-based Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (OFDT).
She said the model had incorporated lessons from several other systems that have been tested around the world.
“The idea is to keep control of supply so that it doesn’t prosper rapidly,” Obradovic said.