Cannabis in Austria: Summary of Current State & Positions of the ÖCB
In 2025, the Austrian government resolved to subject low-THC cannabis flowers (not exceeding 0.3% THC limit) under the state-regulated tobacco monopoly and tobacco tax scales. For over seven years, hundreds of local private entrepreneurs built the commercial sale of low-THC "CBD flowers" with huge private investments and success, while the state regulated the trade and collected taxes. Now, this entire local sector is being stripped of its business foundation, leading to a de facto ban by 2029.
Their commercial trade is being reassigned to a small number of tobacco wholesale operators, who will henceforth distribute low-THC flowers through tobacconists (Trafiken) and licensed kiosks without competition. Specialized hemp shops are being hit with retroactive tobacco tax assessments for their sales from 2022 to 2025. These are calculated at such severe levels that local business owners are pushed into private financial ruin.
The state's expected budget windfalls from this monopoly will fail to materialize. Flowers strictly limited to 0.3% total THC (THCA x 0.877 + THC) are poorly demanded and qualitatively inferior, since this low threshold is extremely difficult to farm naturally. Cultivators are forced to lower active values artificially via irradiation, high heat evaporation, or technical solvents, leaving degraded flowers that often contain harmful gas residues.
In reality, organic hemp has nothing in common with tobacco. Nicotine and cannabinoids have completely different active mechanisms. While salvia and peppermint can also be smoked, nobody drinks tobacco tea, eats tobacco pastries, or uses cosmetic creams based on tobacco paste. In Switzerland, state attempts to subject CBD flowers under tobacco monopoly laws were dismissed by the Supreme Court. Switzerland is set to introduce a comprehensive consumption-oriented Cannabis Act. Legal proceedings are also underway in Austria to defeat this unconstitutional commercial expropriation.
Specialty CBD trade can only exist sustainably under a 1% total THC limit (with up to 0.5% Delta9-THC). This threshold allows organic, high-quality flowers to be farmed economically. In multiple European countries (e.g., Switzerland, the Czech Republic), such flowers are fully legally tradeable. Online shops in those nations ship throughout Europe, despite nominal Austrian import restrictions that local customs can rarely enforce.
Austrian consumers seeking natural flowers will continue to order online or turn back to illicit black-market dealers, receiving unverified materials. This regulatory void is counterproductive. The THC threshold could be easily increased to 1% by a simple ministerial decree from the Ministry of Health – which is precisely how the 0.3% limit was originally established in 2017.
While a 1% THC limit would provide tobacconists with better products, it does not resolve the deep injustice dealt to specialty retailers. In the midst of severe economic cycles, the government is wiping out an active sector. Hanfshops will be mostly forced to close by 2029, taking their jobs, rents, local taxes, and retail outlets with them.
Specialty shops that focus solely on this botanical matter, allowing sensory evaluation (scent), describing consumption forms, and providing deep guidance, have absolute validity next to generic kiosks. Cannabis culture is comparable to wine culture. It is unjust to expropriate specialized experts and force them out of business. It is equivalent to banning all boutique wine shops, allowing only low-grade boxed wine, and criminalizing sommeliers.
Twenty out of twenty-seven EU member states distribute natural cannabis flowers or extracts via medical prescriptions and pharmacies. Austria almost completely avoids this modern healthcare market. The state only permits pure synthetic THC – categorized as a highly restricted narcotic, tolerated solely for severe pain suppression or substitution treatments. Insurance coverages and physician prescriptions are extremely rare.
Pure synthetic THC is brought onto the market at inflated costs through a heavily controlled public bureaucracy. Natural flowers remain banned under threat of prison. This contradicts international scientific consensus regarding cannabis as a medicinal plant containing over 100 active synergistic compounds.
Furthermore, Austrian regulations are inconsistent with the pharmaceutical provisions of the Schengen Agreement, a fact that is politically acknowledged but ignored. They also conflict with the UN Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, which reclassified cannabis in 2020, recognizing it as a medicinal plant with low dependence risks, where research and patient accessibility should be facilitated. The fiscal and economic losses resulting from the absence of medical cannabis flowers in Austria are immense. Germany imported approximately 200 tons of medical cannabis in 2025, representing a market value of over one billion Euros.
Surrounding nations are actively legalizing and regulating cannabis for adult consumption: Germany legalized it in April 2024, the Czech Republic is set to regulate it by 2026, Slovenia passed a referendum supporting regulation, and Switzerland is reviewing a draft Cannabis Act.
While Austria faces severe budget deficits and inflation, political leaders ignore this scientifically backed growth market. Regulatory models like the German Cannabis Act are based on extensive economic, social, and healthcare data, proving that regulation does not disrupt public health but rather brings major fiscal and social benefits.
Regulated legal access systematically destroys illicit networks. Current Austrian prohibition laws actively maintain and feed the black market, which pays no taxes, has no age limits, and provides unverified materials. Banning natural crops under the guise of public protection has failed globally.
For all these reasons, Austria needs a comprehensive Cannabis Act that regulates the crop modernly and fairly – including a dedicated Cannabis Taxation Act.