Marijuana on the move

During the 1980s, heroin consumption in Portugal and the related increase in AIDS cases were among the highest in Europe. Repressive policies to deal with the problem were not working, and so in 1998, a committee of government-appointed experts recommended decriminalizing use. The law was approved in 2001, and is still in place.

Broadly speaking, the law works like this: drug consumption is prohibited, but it is a civil, not a criminal, offense. So if the police find drugs on somebody, whether those drugs are cannabis or heroin, they are taken to the station house. If they are carrying over a certain amount, they will be charged with dealing. If the amount is smaller, they are not charged, but instead must appear before a panel made up of a social worker, a lawyer and a psychologist.

The panel will assess the degree of addiction, advising treatment if it considers this necessary. If somebody is detained several times, they can be fined or given community work, or banned from entering certain establishments where drugs are known to be used or suspected of being bought and sold. But the matter remains out of the criminal courts.

João Castel-Branco Goulão, the head of the Portuguese Health Ministry's drug-dependence treatment service, says that the aim is to avoid stigmatizing users, giving them time and the opportunity to undergo rehabilitation. "We aim to pursue the illness, not the ill. The Portuguese state is still opposed to the use of illegal drugs. Which is why consumption remains banned. But we are not against drug addicts, which is why they do not enter the criminal justice system. The idea is that once they have undergone rehabilitation they can return to a normal life, because they will not have a police record, which makes it easier to get a job and find somewhere to live."

Castel-Branco Goulão says that the statistics support Portugal's approach: "In 1997, there were around 100,000 drug addicts that we could describe as 'tough cases,' most of them heroin users, around one percent of the population, which is a worryingly high figure. But that figure today has been halved. Consumption has developed along the lines of other countries, but there is better access to treatment," he says.

Another important result of keeping drug users out of the courts is that more of them are prepared to seek help from the authorities to deal with their addiction, Castel-Branco Goulão explains.

But Portugal is not necessarily heading in the direction of Uruguay, where, like alcohol, the government now regulates the production and consumption of marijuana. "Our law was approved almost 14 years ago. So we need to watch very carefully what happens in Uruguay. Nobody has any clear answers to this situation, but in the same way that other countries were watching to see what would happen here, we should now be watching to see what happens in Uruguay," says Castel-Branco Goulão.

The Basque regional parliament has reopened the way toward passing a law that would regulate cannabis smokers' clubs, ending the legal limbo that the 77 associations, with around 10,000 members in total, currently operate within. Estimates suggest that the total number of people who regularly smoke cannabis in the Basque Country is more than 100,000.

At the same time, there are an estimated 10,000 small-scale cannabis plantations in the region, the vast majority of them supplying one or two smokers. There are around 50 larger plantations managed by clubs to supply "a closed circuit" of establishments, says Iker Val, head of Eusfac, the federation of cannabis associations in the Basque Country. More than a thousand plantations are in the hands of "illicit drug trafficking networks," who Val says act with "total impunity."

In September, the regional parliament again began looking into establishing a legal framework that would allow cannabis clubs to operate. "Everybody involved, even the most skeptical, say that they are in favor of these clubs, with the exception of the president of the Basque Supreme Court, Juan Luis Ibarra, whose position is that while consumption of this substance may not be a crime, neither is it a right," explains Martín Barriuso, head of the Pannagh cannabis smokers' association, whose premises were closed by the police in 2011.

Barriuso, who says that he was invited by the Uruguayan authorities to collaborate with the legalization plans in that country, is also closely following events in Colorado. He says that the Basque Country has an "advantage" over other Spanish regions because of the 28 cases won by cannabis clubs in Basque courts, which he believes establish an important body of legal precedent.

Val says that cannabis clubs are the best way to combat drug trafficking. The Basque Country government estimates that around 200 metric tons of marijuana are consumed each year in the region. "Where there are cannabis clubs there is no drug dealing," he says.

"Our goal is to end the activities of drug dealers and traffickers, and to encourage the moderate use of marijuana for therapeutic purposes," says Barriuso, adding that cannabis associations check the quality of the product they provide to members.

Meanwhile, the Basque regional police force continues to close down cannabis clubs: Barriuso says that at least 10 have been raided since last autumn.

The region of Catalonia is home to an estimated 400 cannabis clubs, most of them in Barcelona, with some 165,000 members, according to the Federation of Self-regulating Cannabis Associations of Catalonia (Fedcac), which says that these not-for-profit associations turn over around 4.5 million euros per month. “These associations can have income, but everything must be reinvested in the project,” says lawyer Martí Cánaves. This would mean rent and some cultural activities, but as production is still illegal (most plants are grown in warehouses), there is little official oversight of their accounts.

This has led many clubs to join up with others, as well as to spend revenue on providing medical and therapeutic advice, or to provide staff with work contracts. But they know that the legal limbo they operate in could jeopardize their operations. Clubs are increasingly attracting traffickers. “The situation is out of our control,” say sources at Fedcac, warning that the sector is “growing exponentially, and is unstoppable.”

Fedcac has met with representatives from the Catalan parliament 27 times to call for regulation. The region’s health department agrees that the legal limbo needs to end and regulation introduced.

The starting point would seem to be regulating associations and clubs themselves. This would involve banning “promotional activities”, establishing a minimum age, limiting membership, and the amount of marijuana they can produce or sell to members.