Tag: spain

Spain, like every other populated country on earth, is home to suffering patients, many of whom use various forms of medical cannabis to treat their condition(s). How many such patients there are in Spain is nearly impossible to determine, largely because the nation does not have a comprehensive medical cannabis program.

For several years lawmakers in Spain have tried to pass meaningful medical cannabis regulations, just to see medical cannabis measures repeatedly hit dead ends. The most recent example can be found last year when draft medical cannabis legislation was circulated and then tabled.

The Spanish government is reportedly reviving efforts to review medical cannabis regulation proposals, which are desperately needed in a country that has arguably the most active unregulated medical cannabis market on the planet. Per The Local:

Sources from the Ministry, headed by Sumar’s Mónica García, have confirmed to various outlets in the Spanish press that they intend to press on with draft legislation and relaunch the creation of a medical programme from mid-January.

The government had previously looked into the issue and the Spanish Parliament even approved a draft document that urged for cannabis regulation for medicinal purposes, but with the rush of elections at the end of the last legislature the issue was ultimately side-lined.

Now the Health Ministry wants to reignite the process and is reviewing the existing draft legislation, which was drawn up on the basis of findings by a Congressional committee and was something backed by all parties besides right-wing Partido Popular (PP) and Vox, who voted against.

According to a poll cited by The Local, 84% of Spaniards support regulating medical cannabis per CIS data. A majority of lawmakers in Spain’s Parliament also reportedly support medical cannabis reform.

There is a clear disconnect between cannabis opponents in Spain’s Parliament and what is actually going on in Spain’s communities. Spain’s cannabis consumption rate is greater than nearly every other nation on Earth, and hundreds of private cannabis clubs populate various parts of the country.

The absence of a regulated domestic medical cannabis program has done nothing to deter people from consuming cannabis. Rather, it forces suffering patients to source their medicine from unregulated sources, which is far from an optimal situation.

It remains unclear if/when medical cannabis legislation will receive a vote in Spain’s Parliament, and for that matter, whether such a vote would prove to be favorable or not. However, momentum does appear to be gaining in Spain, and it’s largely a matter of supporters in parliament overcoming the constant hurdles that are set up by opponents.

Meanwhile, the effort to shut down cannabis clubs in Barcelona continues, although, the odds of it succeeding seem grim at best. Lawmakers at the local and national levels need to work together in Spain to regulate cannabis products and commerce, rather than continue to stick their heads in the ground and let organized crime fill the void at the expense of public health outcomes.

Earlier this month power outages were reported in parts of Spain, including in the Spanish city of Granada. While the outages are not necessarily a new thing in Spain, they are reportedly increasing in frequency and severity in multiple parts of the European nation.

Endesa, which is Spain’s largest electric company, attributes the reported increase in outages to unregulated cannabis cultivation operations, and that one-third of the electricity consumed in Granada’s northern district last year was reportedly connected to such operations.

The true cause of the power outages is open for debate. Many authorities are echoing what Endesa is claiming, and yet many residents are pointing to what they claim is a failing electrical grid. Unregulated cannabis operations may be contributing to the problem, however, they may also only play a small role in what seems to be an increasing issue for Spain.

Regardless, a point that seems to be lost in the larger discussion is that Spain’s approach to cannabis is completely outdated and in desperate need of sensible modernization. Cannabis is largely tolerated in Spain, however, legalization is not the law of the land.

Cannabis clubs are very common in parts of Spain, particularly in Barcelona, and all of the cannabis that supplies those clubs comes from unregulated sources. It’s a complete free-for-all, and as such, no one truly knows how much cannabis is being cultivated and sold in Spain every year.

What we do know is that the current approach to cannabis policy in Spain is insufficient, to put it lightly. Licensing and regulating cannabis cultivation would not guarantee that Spain’s power outages would be resolved, however, it would give lawmakers, regulators, and electricity providers something to work with.

The only way to properly address Spain’s unregulated cannabis cultivation energy consumption concerns is to transition the unregulated market to a regulated one in which cannabis is cultivated in more sustainable ways, and in a manner that balances the cannabis industry’s energy needs with the rest of society’s.

In regulated jurisdictions, many cannabis cultivators now rely entirely on the sun to grow their crops, or they only use artificial lighting to supplement sunlight. The cannabis is cultivated in state-of-the-art greenhouses that easily regulate temperature and airflow. As such, they consume very little energy.

Compare that to illegal cultivation operations that are almost always reliant solely on artificial lighting and use a significant amount of energy because they are located out of sight in an enclosed facility to avoid detection. ‘The win’ would be if consumers in Spain made their purchases from the former, not the latter.

That only happens if/when lawmakers in Spain reform the nation’s laws to permit legal cannabis cultivation for adult-use purposes and permit those cultivators’ crops to be sold at regulated outlets. Regulations have to be sensible to ensure that prices for legal products are competitive with unregulated products, otherwise, the unregulated market will continue to thrive in Spain.

Spain has long served as a unique home for cannabis public policy. Technically, medical cannabis is prohibited in many instances in Spain, with the nation’s legal medical cannabis industry largely built around research and exports.

Domestic medical cannabis patients are almost always left on the outside looking in and have to resort to unregulated sources for their medicine. Fortunately for patients, medical cannabis is fairly easy to acquire in Spain from private cannabis clubs, however, the situation highlights that Spain’s cannabis model is in desperate need of improvement.

When patients and providers have to operate in an unregulated environment, there is a considerable amount of uncertainty involved and that makes it difficult to keep things going at times. Unregulated industries are ripe for selective enforcement towards providers, and patients may end up buying untested products that are not as ‘clean’ as they could be.

Advocates have pushed for reform in Spain for many years, and yet, success has remained elusive. Medical cannabis patients and industry members were hopeful that 2022 would be the year for a regulation bill to get to the finish line just to see their hopes dashed. Fortunately, the nation’s Minister of Health is signaling that movement is on the way. Per El Planteo:

The Minister of Health of Spain, José Manuel Miñones , announced that before the end of May he will present a report that will allow the regulation of the use of medicinal cannabis in the National Health System (SNS) . The news came after some parliamentarians have claimed the delay in the analysis of the Spanish Agency for Medicines and Health Products (Aemps), whose term ended in 2022.

Miñones also apologized for the delay in his first appearance before the Health Commission of the Lower House. Congress had ruled in favor of regulating medical cannabis in June 2022, and the subcommittee in charge had given Aemps a period of six months to issue recommendations.

What is being proposed is instead of regulating the nation’s private cannabis clubs, patients will be able to legally acquire medical cannabis and products derived from medical cannabis via one of Spain’s licensed pharmacies.

In some countries, such as the United States, pharmacies are not used to dispense medical cannabis outside of a handful of pharmaceutical-grade products. In other countries, such as Germany, pharmacies are used to serve as the backbone of safe access for suffering patients. Whether something meaningful comes out of Spain or not is something that we will all have to wait and see.

Yesterday was a potentially big day for cannabis policy reform in Spain, however, a bill that would have set up long-needed medical and adult-use regulations failed to pass in Parliament on Tuesday. For now, the status quo remains.

As we have reported several times in recent months, Spain’s emerging cannabis industry is in desperate need of reform in order to reach its full potential. Reform would, in turn, help consumers and patients across the country.

Unfortunately, that will not happen in the immediate future, although the fight to reform Spain’s cannabis laws is far from over. Still, yesterday’s vote was indeed unfortunate, with blame being warranted towards those that voted in support of prohibition. Per Noticias Sin (translated to English):

A comprehensive legalization of cannabis, both for therapeutic and recreational use , was rejected this Tuesday in the Spanish Parliament.

The socialist party PSOE, which is part of the coalition government in Spain with the left-wing formation United We Can, was one of those who voted against it , along with part of the right-wing opposition.

His partner in the Executive supported the initiative along with other leftist forces or formations such as the liberals of Ciudadanos, in their vote in the Congress or lower house of the Spanish Parliament.

Yesterday’s vote was definitely a missed opportunity, however, cannabis advocates will never give up. Hopefully certain reasonable tweaks can be made to proposed legislation in order to get it to the finish line.

Meanwhile, the unregulated market continues to thrive in Spain. Cannabis laws may not be as bad in Spain as they are in other countries, yet even lukewarm prohibition is still prohibition, and as long as people are being harmed by Spanish prohibition there will always be a need for reform.