Now that tens of thousands of patients who use cannabis for its therapeutic virtues are demanding not to have to resort to the black market to buy their medicine, and that several million enthusiasts like us enjoy a variety of herbs and extracts provided through our association, it is worth trying to explain how we got here.

With this first article, we begin a three-part series on our Blog in which we will attempt to explain, in a concise and entertaining way, the cannabis history of Spain through the popular songs of each era; songs that vividly portrayed the state of affairs at every moment in our history.

Throughout these years of summarized history, we will try to understand how we—“stoners,” “marijuana smokers,” and “joint lovers”—have gone from social stigma to a certain degree of recognition, and how something once considered minority and countercultural has nowadays become more normal and “mainstream”.

Cigarettes of laughter and joints

We could say that the history of cannabis in Spain truly began during the 1930s, with the first major cannabis importers being the legionnaires and regular troops stationed in Morocco.

During the Spanish Civil War, the trafficking of grifa (as it was popularly called at the time) from Ketama to the front lines was organized and allowed by the Francoist high command.

In war, anything goes, and in this way the coup-leading military hierarchs, all reactionary and ultra-conservative, looked the other way because, after all, it helped to keep “troop morale high.”

Ultimately, we could say that the history of cannabis in Spain begins with a great contradiction and hypocrisy, but as we already know, that is the most common thing when talking about our beloved plant.

Thus, the legionnaires were the first to leave evidence in song that grifa was an enjoyable pastime, presenting it as a compelling reason for an Englishman to enlist in the legion:

During the following decade of the harsh post-war 1940s, the consumption of grifa skyrocketed not only in what could be described as marginal environments. “Cigarettes of laughter,” or “firecrackers,” as they were also known because of the popping sounds made by the hemp seeds when burning, were sold in the main cities of autarkic and black-market Spain.

Despite this initial tolerance, once the new regime was fully established and consolidated, harsh repression of the phenomenon began in the 1950s.

The trade and consumption of grifa were prosecuted and punished, while attempts were also made to curb trafficking from Morocco. The “grifotas” became socially marginalized and were viewed as subversive elements against Francoist Catholic Spain, “Great and Free.”

The 1960s: grifotas and hippies lereleré

Repression continued to intensify in an attempt to stop the inevitable spread of consumption brought about by the 1960s among rebellious young people who made cannabis use a symbol against conventionalism.

On the fringes were the grifotas alongside the first local hippies, an intergenerational and interclass encounter that added a unique cultural dimension to cannabis consumption in Spain, aligned internationally with emancipation movements and the psychedelic revolution, whose greatest promoters were found in Anglo-Saxon foreign music.

The reverence for a vague Andalusian past filled with swirling cannabis smoke blended with an orientalist fascination for India and Nepal.

If the legionnaires sought a good thrill, the hippies and young intellectuals searching for personal liberation experiences—beyond collective revolution—began to seek “the high” that takes you further, the journey to Nirvana.

However, direct references to joints in popular music would have to wait a little longer, until the Roma people began singing their suburban rumbas; the more elitist singer-songwriters and national pop groups still did not seem willing to get their hands dirty by taking a public stance on something that continued to carry the stigma of marginality and criminality.

Ultimately, the young black sheep of the bourgeoisie understood smoking joints as a private habit practiced discreetly, only publicly hinted at through insider references and within their closest circles.

It is also true that some of these modern youths suffered beatings from the newly created Special Narcotics Brigade, and more than one ended up making a short visit to the psychiatric ward of Carabanchel prison, like the good old Henry Stephen, who had become famous in the summer of 1968 with the song “My Lemon, My Lemon Tree”.

However, it was the Roma people (who in the 1970s would take over the grifa and hashish business) who truly began singing about it.

In Andalusia circulated that rumba, still sung today, called “That Stuff the Moors Smoke”; but it was Los Chichos, at the beginning of the 1970s, who first recorded a cannabis-related hit.

With “La Cachimba”, the door was opened to the glorification of cannabis use in the national music repertoire:

Well, almost without realizing it, we have already travelled through four decades of history, arriving at the beginning of the 1970s. And here we end this first installment; soon we will continue singing and telling you more in our next Blog publication.

TO BE CONTINUED →