FAQ

An association in which adults grow cannabis together for their own use. The law calls it a cultivation association (Anbauvereinigung). More on this under What is a cannabis social club?

The club was founded on 5 September 2023 and is registered with Dortmund Local Court under VR 7945. The Arnsberg District Government granted its licence as a cultivation association on 25 November 2024. Cultivation began on 1 January 2025, the first harvest was in April 2025 and cannabis was first passed on to members in May 2025.

No. Cannabis Social Club Dortmund e. V. (VR 7945) has nothing to do with Mariana Cannabis or the “Cannabis Social Clubs Deutschland” (cscsdeutschland.de), including their Dortmund branch, which also appears under the name “Cannabis Social Club Dortmund”. We do not belong to any umbrella organisation or chain.

Reports on Mariana include those by WDR (26.06.2025) and by the German Hemp Association, Deutscher Hanfverband (04.05.2024, 30.01.2026). We distance ourselves in the clearest terms from the business model and business practices described in those reports.

If you have paid fees to Mariana or are receiving payment demands: for such cases, the German Hemp Association names a lawyer specialising in association law, Rosalie Schönbach-Krieger, and provides a checklist to help you prepare (PDF, in German). She also advises our association. You can contact any law firm specialising in association law.

Our only website is csc.do. You can only apply for membership in the members’ portal at portal.csc.do. If you have paid fees to another association, please contact that association. We can neither refund nor offset them.

No. We have no vacancies and do not expect any in the foreseeable future. Please do not send us speculative applications up to and including 2028. If a position becomes vacant, we advertise it internally first, then among our members and only publicly if nobody is found there.

No. We choose our suppliers and service providers ourselves and approach the companies that suit our work. That goes for fertiliser, soil, energy, cuttings, seeds, equipment and everything else. For reasons of time, we cannot deal with unsolicited offers, and that includes phone calls: our phone line is for members and people who are interested.

Under the Consumer Cannabis Act (KCanG), you must be at least 18, have had your residence or habitual abode in Germany for at least six months and not be a member of another cultivation association (§ 16 KCanG). This means that anyone who does not live in Germany, for example visitors from abroad, cannot become a member. You also accept the statutes, the fee regulations and the code of conduct. If you are under 21, stricter limits apply (§ 19 para. 3 KCanG). We do not currently have suitable batches, so until we do again, you cannot collect anything. The Membership page explains everything else.

No. You must have lived in Germany for at least six months; it does not have to be Dortmund. About one in five members lives outside Dortmund, for example in Lünen, Bochum, Witten, Unna, Herdecke, Duisburg or Essen, and a few in Cologne, Mönchengladbach and Wuppertal. You collect your cannabis in person in Dortmund.

Yes. But we can only admit you once your membership there has ended: you may only be a member of one cultivation association (§ 16 para. 2 KCanG), and you confirm this to us in writing when you are admitted (§ 16 para. 3 KCanG). Keep your current association’s notice period in mind.

You apply online in the members’ portal. You can switch the form to English using its language selector. Before you submit it, you choose a date there for the introductory interview or suggest your own dates. The interview is held in German or English. After the interview, the board decides. Once you are accepted, you sign a confidentiality agreement digitally and set up your account in our club app CannanasDE within seven days. There is no entitlement to admission.

That is largely up to you: you choose the date directly in the application, before you submit it. If none of the dates offered suits you, suggest your own and we will get back to you as soon as we can. The interview takes about 45 minutes, either at our office at Speicherstraße 100 or online by video, in German or English.

Your identity card (Personalausweis) or residence permit (Aufenthaltstitel). If you bring a passport, also bring a current certificate of registration (Meldebescheinigung). A driving licence is not enough. The law requires us to check your age and residence in this way (§ 16 para. 4 KCanG). Without suitable ID, we cannot hold the interview.

Yes. A companion is welcome if they are an adult and can show ID at the interview.

No. We only pass on cannabis to members, so only after admission (§ 19 KCanG). The law does not allow samples for people who are interested in joining.

The basic fee is €15.00 a month; there is currently no admission fee. For cannabis, there is also a cost contribution per gram, currently €9.00 for flowers and €15.00 for hashish, each including VAT. The Costs page explains everything else.

After admission. The amount you gave in your application applies to the quarter of your introductory interview. As soon as the cost contribution has been paid, you collect the cannabis in person at our distribution point. You will receive the address after admission. You must bring your membership card, which you have digitally in the Cannanas app, and an official photo ID (§ 19 para. 2 KCanG). Shipping and delivery are prohibited.

No. Only members themselves receive cannabis, in person at our distribution point and after their membership card and official photo ID have been checked (§ 19 para. 2 KCanG). Shipping and delivery are prohibited.

No. What you receive from us is for your own use only. Passing it on to others is prohibited and a criminal offence (§ 34 KCanG); if an adult over 21 passes it on to minors, this is generally treated as a particularly serious case.

No. Consumption is prohibited on the premises of a cultivation association and within sight of its entrance (§ 5 para. 2 KCanG). That includes right outside the door.

In a cultivation association, the members grow together; the law speaks of active participation (§ 17 para. 2 KCanG). For us, members take care of cultivation and distribution, some of them in a minijob. Beyond that, you can help out as a volunteer at any time, for example with trimming after the harvest. So that we can plan, you also state in the members’ portal before each quarter how much you are ordering. You will find out more at the introductory interview.

We only grow as much as our members need. That is why, before each quarter, we ask in the members’ portal how much you would like to order for each of the three months. All the answers together determine how many plants we start. Our cannabis keeps for six months from the day of harvest. We therefore plan so that as little as possible expires and nobody goes without.

Your order is binding: we grow that amount specifically for you, so you pay the cost contribution for the whole amount, even if you do not collect all of it. Reducing it afterwards is only possible in cases of hardship. If so, please talk to us as early as possible.

If you would like to consume less or take a break, enter less or nothing in the next quarterly survey. If you have not ordered anything, you can only collect what is left after all orders have been met.

We collect the basic fee by SEPA direct debit, monthly, quarterly, half-yearly or yearly, as you prefer. You pay the cost contribution for cannabis in advance, by bank transfer only. There are no other options: Mastercard, Visa, PayPal and Klarna exclude anything to do with THC. We do not accept cash for compliance and security reasons. When you make the transfer, enter the payment reference exactly as it appears in your booking. Our system will then match the payment automatically. Transfers usually reach us quickly. We only pass on cannabis once all fees and contributions due have been paid.

By email to info@csc-dortmund.de or directly in our club app CannanasDE. Membership lasts at least three months (§ 16 para. 5 KCanG); notice periods and dates are set out in the statutes. An open quarterly order remains binding until you leave.

No, not even at 50 grams a month. Every gram costs the same. A reduction for larger amounts would be an incentive to consume more. The Arnsberg District Government, our licensing authority, has confirmed to us that discounts are not permitted.

No. We do pass on flowers in steps of 5 grams, but you do not have to order anything. If you do not order any cannabis, you only pay the basic fee.

From 21: no more than 25 grams a day and 50 grams a month. From 18 to 20: no more than 25 grams a day and 30 grams a month, and the cannabis may contain no more than 10% THC (§ 19 para. 3 KCanG). The club app Cannanas enforces these limits every time cannabis is handed out. We do not currently have any batches with no more than 10% THC. Until we do again, members under 21 cannot collect anything. We will let you know in the members’ portal as soon as that changes.

The law requires regular random sampling (§ 18 KCanG). We go further: an independent laboratory determines the content of THC, CBD and other active substances in every batch. Every batch is tested for heavy metals, microbial contamination and mould toxins, either individually or together with other harvests in a pooled sample. So far, no sample has been flagged. All results are on the Lab resultsDE page.

The club has a health and youth protection plan (§ 23 KCanG). Two prevention officers advise members confidentially and refer them to addiction counselling services if needed. There is also an anonymous self-test, a knowledge section and prevention training; see Prevention. People under 18 are not allowed on our premises; more under Youth protection.

No. Thank you to all the teachers who contact us. But we are not the right people for prevention work in schools: if a cultivation association appears in front of pupils, it can easily be misunderstood as advertising. Please contact local addiction counselling and prevention specialists, for example DROBS Dortmund. You will find other services under Finding help.

In the presence of minors, in pedestrian zones between 7 am and 8 pm and within sight of schools, children’s playgrounds, children’s and youth facilities, sports facilities and cultivation associations (§ 5 KCanG). Our map of no-consumption zones shows the zones. The Cannabis in Dortmund page explains the other rules.

No. Cultivation associations may only pass on cannabis in pure form, as flowers or hashish (§ 19 para. 1 KCanG). Edibles, meaning biscuits, gummy sweets or other foods containing THC, are banned in Germany. Manufacturing cannabis products and extracting active ingredients from the plant are also prohibited (§ 2 KCanG). That is why we do not give any information on how to make or dose edibles. Why edibles are particularly risky is explained in the article Edibles: the risks and why they are banned.

Yes. We currently make dry sift: the resin-rich glands of the plant, the trichomes, are separated from the dried flowers by sieving them dry through fine screens, without water or solvents. The result is separated resin and therefore hashish within the meaning of the law (§ 1 no. 5 KCanG), which cultivation associations may pass on (§ 19 para. 1 KCanG). Bubble hash is made in a similar way, except that the trichomes are separated with ice water and filter bags and then dried. That is hashish too. Rosin is resin pressed out of flowers or hashish using heat and pressure. We are clarifying with the Ministry of Labour, Health and Social Affairs of North Rhine-Westphalia (MAGS) whether rosin is permitted. We do not currently make bubble hash or rosin, because there is no demand and production is expensive.

Since 30 July 2026, statutory health insurers no longer pay for cannabis flowers, only for extracts and certain finished medicinal products (§ 31 para. 6 SGB V). Doctors can still prescribe flowers on a private prescription.

In addition, the Federal Government wants to amend the Medical Cannabis Act: cannabis flowers would only be prescribed after personal contact in the doctor’s practice or on a home visit, and mail order would end. The draft law has been before the Bundestag since December 2025 (printed paper 21/3061, in German). It has not yet been passed, as of 28 September 2026. In September 2026, Federal Health Minister Carsten Linnemann again spoke out in favour of ending prescriptions without personal contact with a doctor and mail order.

For adults without a medical reason, home growing and cultivation associations are the only legal options. The reform would not change that; only the detour via online prescriptions without a doctor’s visit would disappear.

Our licence as a cultivation association is valid until 31 December 2031. The Consumer Cannabis Act provides for seven years, after which it can be extended (§ 14 KCanG). Only a new law could abolish the model. Such a law would have to respect the legitimate expectations attached to existing licences, for example through transitional periods. If the authority had to revoke our licence early even though we comply with all the rules, we would be entitled, on application, to compensation for the financial losses we suffered in reliance on the licence, insofar as that reliance deserves protection (§ 15 para. 2 KCanG, § 49 para. 6 VwVfG NRW).