It's cannabis crunch time in Brussels. In October 2022, Germany laid out a bold plan to fully legalize recreational cannabis for people aged 18 and over. But bloc-wide laws on everything from the single market to drug smuggling threaten to spoil the party — unless Germany can persuade the EU to get on board. The generally socially liberal Europe has been shy when it comes to legalizing psychoactive cannabis for recreational use. The drug is banned almost everywhere in the bloc and the few legalization initiatives are national movements. Now, Germany’s push for legalization, led by the progressive traffic light coalition currently in power, challenges the EU to hash out exactly how recreational weed could fit into the bloc's rules.