Four friends in the south of the Grand Duchy are offering a service that Luxembourg hasn’t seen before: cannabis gardening.
All in their 20s Harley Miguel de Jesus Panoias, Pedro Miguel Figueriedo Baptista, Andy Anthony and Rui Filipe Jesus Araujo opened a Cannabis shop in Differedange at the start of February.
But for the last year, ahead of the opening of Popeye’s Passion, they’ve been helping people grow and cultivate cannabis in their homes.
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“We are the gardeners of cannabis from Luxembourg,” De Jesus Panoias said. “We are kind of different to the traditional grow shops because all the grow shops just sell the products either for smoking or for growing and they don’t have the customer service as we do, because we go to the people’s houses.”
It has been legal to consume and cultivate cannabis in Luxembourg since Summer 2023, with the growing of up to four cannabis plants per household for personal consumption permitted. The selling of cannabis and public consumption is illegal.
The team makes house visits, showing clients how best to grow the plant, as well as cultivate it and extract materials from it for uses such as smoking or mixing into food.
© Photo credit: Harley Miguel de Jesus Panoias
“Everybody can put a seed into soil, and it will grow and it will produce something,” said De Jesus Panoias. “But it’s about perfecting the process to get the most out of it as possible.”
De Jesus Panoias and Figueriedo Baptista said they have a mix of clients who use their gardening services, including people who like to grow the plant for medical conditions and others for pleasure.
One of their small number of clients is someone who is visually impaired, while others include people who just “want to get better [at it],” according to De Jesus Panoias.
Figueriedo Baptista began using cannabis after a car accident as he felt the side-effects were less strong than that of the pain killers he was prescribed. Both him and Jesus Panoias stressed that they are not medical professionals and would not recommend it as a medical solution to clients without consulting a doctor.
Failed pot reform
Medicinal cannabis has been legal in Luxembourg since July 2018, but recreational weed remains illegal after the former DP-LSAP-déi Gréng coalition failed in its plan to permit and regulate pot in 2023.
Cannabis remains by far the most commonly consumed illicit drug in Europe, according to a 2025 report by the European Union’s drugs agency. “The cannabis market accounts for the largest share of the overall illicit drug retail market in the European Union, with an estimated value of at least € 12.1 billion,” the report said.
Proponents of the drug being legalised in 2023 had argued that weed currently bought on the black market was of poor quality – containing pesticides, chemicals or other substances – and that state production and dispensaries would ensure high quality products and a better control of the market.
This sentiment is shared by the four young entrepreneurs who hope that by opening their shop and providing the at-home cannabis cultivation lessons they can stop people buying the drug from the black market.
“That’s better for us because we know what we consume and it’s better for the country, if people don’t go to as much to the black market,” said De Jesus Panoias.
The group is also hoping that the demand for their gardening service will rise, especially as they don’t think the amount prescribed by doctors for medical purposes is enough. Under Luxembourg law, the maximum allowable dose of medicinal cannabis is 60 grams per patient over a 28-day period.
“The amount that they now give to cannabis patients is not enough, most of the times the people will want more,” De Jesus Panoias said.
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