- - Can you define what is a Cannabis Social Club
in one or two sentences?
- Yes, a Cannabis Social Club is an association without profit
of members which are more than 18 years old
and they sign an agreement that they don’t want to
keep buying the weed or cannabis in the black market,
so that’s why they do this contract.
Each one writes the amount of grams that he needs
to consume every months and with an addition of
all these numbers we calculate how many plants
hogy hány növényre van szükség
we need to provide the cannabis for the members.
So they don’t go to the black market and they just produce
for the people that are members of the club.
And there are some restrictions, for example most of the clubs
don’t allow you to get more than 3 grams every day you go there.
This is not comparable to the coffee shop,
because this is more closed.
It’s more controlled and there’s no kind of advertisement
of the clubs – it’s forbidden.
The seed of the cannabis clubs
was planted in Catalonia in 1992.
It has been done just by activists and civil society organizations.
And just recently
I would say maybe in the last two years
the government has begun to dedicate attention
to the phenomena, because the phenomena was so big
after 20 years, that they couldn’t keep looking to the other side.
And nowadays we have a huge reality
of Cannabis Clubs.
nearly 200 in Barcelona, 32 00:01:49,072 --> 00:01:51,752 nearly 300-350 in Catalonia.
But on hole in Spain
there are between 800-1000 clubs.
- Is it in line with the Spanish law?
What does the Spanish law say
about cannabis use?
- Cannabis law is very particular
not just cannabis
also we got a lot of drugs,
because consumption
has been always decriminalized
since the beginning of democracy.
It’s one of the facts that allows these cannabis clubs,
but the point is that this model has emerged
in a grey zone of law.
So there’s no specific law
regarding cannabis clubs.
Nowadays they are beginning to discuss it
and depending on the level of the government,
there is a more opened point of view or a more closed point of view.
In fact of the central government,
they are completely against the clubs,
so nowadays there’s a discussion
of what will happen if they go back
to clandestinely or they will be regulated.
- How did to police react to the creation
of cannabis clubs?
- Yeah, the weakest point of the cannabis clubs is
where the crops are.
And the crops are not normally in the same shop
or the same place where the cannabis club is.
So imagine: if you want to do a club
you would rent a place in Barcelona,
but then out of Barcelona you rent another place,
and you decide if you do outdoors or indoors.
The place in the city is not a huge problem,
not for the members, not for the family,
because inside there is a small amount of cannabis
and it makes no sense to go with a hundred policemen,
because at the end it’s a small amount.
What is more risky is the crops, the plantations.
In that sense the members have to keep it absolutely off the record.
And if the police detects the plantation, they go,
they cut the plants
and then it’s the judge who decides, what happens.
If this is traffic or not traffic.
Until this moment we have had more than 100 cases in trials.
No one has been charged with penalties or whatever because they belong to a cannabis club.
- Do you think this can be like an alternative model
for regulating the cannabis market
compared to what is happening in the US
where it’s mostly commercialized?
- Absolutely, I think this is maybe not “The Model”,
but one model we can learn a lot from.
It’s a very nice experience.
One of the fears that we face
when we talk about legalization
is with companies, that they want to make profit
and advertise this to everybody,
to minors and these issues.
So with cannabis clubs maybe it’s a good
transitional model to learn,
how we can implement
this kind of regulatory system,
so I think
this should be more studied.
- Recently you can read some criticism
that say that now it’s too commercial in Barcelona.
A lot of people just see the business
and not this kind of social entrepreneurship
what it was before.
- Yes, bad practices had happened.
But this is not because of, I think,
the bad behavior of people,
this is because of the lack of regulation.
Some of them were more objective
towards to get more profits,
so they opened the doors, they invited
more the tourists, this has happened,
but most of these clubs have been shot down
last summer, because the city hall was concerned
about this image that Barcelona became the new Amsterdam.
- How do you see the future?
- In September we will have regional elections
and this will be also another very important point,
because it’s not just about cannabis.
We are discussing about regenerating democracy
and changing faces and changing many things.
So this can be very important for the future,
not just of cannabis clubs, also because
of the freedom of Catalonia and you know
these regional tensions that we have.
And at the end in November, December
there are nation elections
and the government that is nowadays in Madrid,
it’s absolutely against cannabis clubs,
so if they change, this is good
for the health of the model.
If they win again,
it will be very bad.