Where Is Weed Legal? The Running List

Weed is fully legal for adults, with a legal way to buy it, in a short list of countries: Uruguay, Canada and Malta, plus about half of the United States under state law. Germany and Luxembourg let adults possess and grow it at home but run no shops, and the Netherlands, the country most people picture first, never legalised it at all.

That gap between "legal", "tolerated" and "not prosecuted" is where most answers to where is weed legal go wrong. A country can scrap penalties for possession and still jail anyone who sells, which is decriminalisation, not legalisation. Below is the running list, with every row linked to the government's own law or official page rather than to a travel blog. It was last checked in September 2026 and gets updated when the law moves.

Which countries have legalised weed?

Country	Status for adults	Legal way to get it	Primary source
Uruguay	Legal since 2013	Pharmacies, clubs or home growing, registered residents only	Law 19.172
Canada	Legal since October 2018	Licensed shops, rules set by each province	Cannabis Act
Malta	Legal since December 2021	Home growing and licensed non-profit associations, no shops	Act LXVI of 2021
Luxembourg	Home growing and use legal since July 2023	Four plants per household, nothing sold	Grand Ducal Police
Germany	Possession and home growing legal since April 2024	Home growing and non-profit associations, no shops	Federal Ministry of Health
United States	Legal in about half the states, illegal under federal law	State-licensed shops where the state allows them	US Department of Justice
South Africa	Private use by adults not a crime	Growing for yourself; the 2024 Act is not yet in force	Department of Justice
Netherlands	Illegal, but tolerated in licensed coffee shops	Coffee shops under strict conditions	Government of the Netherlands
Switzerland	Illegal outside approved research trials	Enrolment in a pilot trial only	Federal Office of Public Health
United Kingdom	Illegal, Class B	Prescription only, for specified medicines	GOV.UK

Only three countries on that list have a nationwide legal market with a supply chain the state stands behind, and one of them, Malta, has kept shops out of it entirely. Everything else is a partial regime. Some let you grow but not buy. Some let you buy but pretend the supply does not exist. The United States lets you buy in a licensed shop in Denver while the federal government still treats the same product as a controlled drug.

Three words do most of the work in this table, and they are not interchangeable. Legal means the law permits it, and in the fullest version there is a licensed supply chain from seed to shop. Decriminalised means possession is no longer a crime, or carries a fine instead of a record, while selling it stays a criminal offence. Tolerated is the Dutch invention: the act remains illegal on paper and the state has promised, under conditions, not to prosecute. A headline that says a country "legalised weed" usually means one of the second two.

Where can adults actually buy it legally?

Canada is the clearest case. Its Cannabis Act took effect on 17 October 2018, making it the first G7 country to legalise, and it split the job in two: Ottawa licenses growers and sets product rules, while each province decides how retail works and what the minimum age is. Most provinces chose 19, Alberta chose 18, and Quebec raised its age to 21. Adults can carry up to 30 grams of dried cannabis in public, and federal law allows four plants per household, though Quebec and Manitoba ban home growing outright. Sales go through a mix of government stores and licensed private shops depending on the province, all of them buying from federally licensed producers. That end-to-end licensing is the thing the Dutch never built.

Uruguay got there first, in December 2013, but built a far tighter system. Adults who are citizens or permanent residents must register, then pick one route: growing at home, joining a membership club, or buying a capped monthly amount from a participating pharmacy. The state sets the price and licenses the handful of companies that grow the pharmacy supply. Tourists cannot buy at all. It is legal weed designed to be boring, and on its own terms it has been.

Then the United States, where the answer depends entirely on which side of a state line you are standing. Around two dozen states, California and Colorado among them, license adult-use shops under state law. Federal law has not followed. In April 2026 the Justice Department moved FDA-approved cannabis products and those sold under state medical licences into Schedule III, and it opened a hearing on moving the rest. Adult-use cannabis stayed where it was, in Schedule I, which is why a licensed Californian shop still cannot use most American banks.

Is weed legal in Amsterdam?

No. This is the single most common misunderstanding on the list, and the Dutch government's own page is blunt about it: cannabis is illegal in the Netherlands. What exists is a toleration policy. Coffee shops that follow strict conditions, including a five-gram limit per customer and no sales to under-18s, are not prosecuted for selling. Growing and supplying the stock they sell remains a crime.

The result is a legal front door on an illegal back door, and the Dutch know it. The government is running a controlled trial in ten municipalities in which coffee shops buy only from approved growers, a test of whether closing the back door works. Amsterdam is not one of the ten. Several cities have also restricted coffee shop sales to residents, so the tourist picture varies by town.

Which countries allow growing or clubs but no shops?

This is the model that has spread fastest in Europe, and Malta started it. Its December 2021 law lets adults carry a small amount, grow up to four plants at home and join a licensed non-profit association that grows for its members. Nobody in Malta can open a shop.

Germany followed on 1 April 2024. Adults can carry 25 grams, keep 50 grams at home and grow three plants each, and cultivation associations of up to 500 members can supply their own members. A second phase with regional commercial pilots was promised and has not arrived, and the government has been reviewing the law since 2025. In July 2026 it also stopped statutory health insurers paying for unprocessed cannabis flower on prescription, a sign of which way the wind is blowing in Berlin.

Luxembourg went smaller still. Since July 2023 adults can grow up to four plants per household and use cannabis at home. Using it in public is still an offence, and carrying three grams or less draws a €145 fine.

South Africa sits in a similar place by a different road. Its Constitutional Court ruled in 2018 that adults using and growing cannabis privately could not be prosecuted, and Parliament followed with the Cannabis for Private Purposes Act in 2024. That Act is not yet in force; draft regulations setting possession and growing limits went out for public comment in February 2026. There is no legal retail.

Switzerland deserves a line because it is running the most careful experiment in Europe. Since May 2021, Swiss law has allowed approved scientific trials in which enrolled adults can buy regulated cannabis. Outside those trials, growing, selling and importing it is prohibited.

So where does the UK sit?

Near the strict end, and not moving. Cannabis is a Class B drug under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971: possession can carry up to five years in prison and supply up to fourteen. Specified cannabis-based medicines have been legal on prescription since November 2018, but that is a medical route, not a market, and no government has proposed a recreational one. We have set out what the law says now and why nobody can give you a date separately, alongside where UK legalisation actually stands.

What the list is good for is showing the menu. Canada's licensed shops, Uruguay's registered buyers, Germany's clubs and the Dutch toleration fudge are the four designs any UK bill would be measured against, and they produce very different results. We went through what legal weed could look like in the UK using exactly those models. The rest of this page will keep changing: Germany's review, the American hearing and South Africa's regulations could each move a row before the year is out.

High in Hackney is a waitlist for the day UK law changes. Nothing is sold here and nothing can be until Parliament acts, but the people on the list hear first when it does. Join the waitlist