Germany is about to legalise dagga, and that could have EU-wide implications for exporters

From 1 April, Germans will be able to legally possess and smoke dagga and, by mid-year, they will be able to trade it in a strictly circumscribed fashion, thanks to new legislation.

For potential foreign suppliers, that will mean little, immediately. But liberalisation in Germany has long been watched as an indicator that the European Union (EU), as a whole, may change its stance on cannabis – potentially opening up a market of 450 million people to places where the plant grows naturally.

Germany's Parliament on Friday voted (by 407 to 226) to pass the legislation needed for it to end criminalisation, in what now seems likely to be a phased introduction to the commercial availability of cannabis.