Is it allowed to grow cannabis? What amount? Can Cannabis Associations, like Marisana, dispense it to their members? In this article we are going to make a brief summary of the current legal situation regarding the regulation of cannabis in our country.

In Spain, the cultivation of drugs or narcotics is one of the actions expressly mentioned in article 368 of the Penal Code, which classifies the crime against public health, and defines the behaviors that encompass this type of crime:

“Those who carry out acts of cultivation, processing or trafficking, or otherwise promote, favor or facilitate the illegal consumption of toxic drugs, narcotics or psychotropic substances, or possess them for those purposes, will be punished with the prison sentences of three to six years and a fine of one to three times the value of the drug that is the object of the crime if they are substances or products that cause serious damage to health, and imprisonment of one to three years and a fine of two to six years. double in other cases.”

In the case of cannabis, since it is a substance that does not cause serious damage to health, the prison sentence, in case of conviction, would range between one and three years and a fine of one to two times (double) the value of the seized drugs.

However, Spain is a country with its particularities, since it is divided into different decentralized autonomous communities, which can adopt laws that are different from each other in certain matters. So, in 2017, the Catalan government attempted to regulate the consumption, cultivation and distribution of cannabis for licensed clubs like ours. However, the law approved in the Catalan Parliament was annulled the following year by the Constitutional Court, following a request from the PP Government led by Mariano Rajoy, alleging that it invaded the powers of the State.

The exception of Cannabis Associations and shared consumption.

Although, with respect to the above, at the level of the entire Spanish state, we must clarify that when the final objective of the crop is personal consumption or shared consumption between several people, this becomes an atypical behavior in our legal system, therefore not having criminal relevance (although it is not administratively authorized).

Cannabis, as is known, is one of the narcotics with a natural harvest cycle. The acts of cultivation of this are punishable only when they tend to facilitate the promotion, favoring or facilitation of consumption by third parties, but if the only ones who benefit from the cultivation are the same people who carry out it, then this conduct is not reprehensible. criminally. We are therefore facing a shared cultivation.

This shared consumption carried out by Cannabis Associations, like Marisana, that dispense cannabis among their members. Is it legal? The Supreme Court Sentence number: 484/2015 establishes more restrictive conditions than those used by jurisprudence until that moment so that said activity is not criminally prosecuted. These are:

• The small number of people, all of them of legal age, who gather together.

• The closed nature of the group.

• That cannabis is intended solely and exclusively for the individual consumption of those who have grouped together, with the reasonable conviction that no one from the association is going to proceed with redistribution or commercialization on their own.

• Consumption must take place within the association's headquarters, and it is prohibited to go out with cannabis to consume it in public places, outside of a private area.

• And finally the Supreme Court also states that the association must not carry out any advertising or ostentation.

This Judgment limits the majority jurisprudence that understood the activity of associations within the parameters of the doctrine of shared consumption and therefore acquits them for the most part.

It should be noted that said Supreme Court criterion is not mandatory and, in fact, there are several courts and tribunals that unfortunately still deviate from it today.

The Drugtest an issue still to be resolved.

Finally, there is the issue of drug testing of drivers, known as Drugtest. Here we find ourselves facing the most unfair and unconstitutional legislation in the treatment of cannabis use.

Article 14.1 of the Law on Traffic, Circulation of Motor Vehicles and Road Safety, establishes a penalty of € 1000,00 as well as the deduction of 6 points from the license, for anyone who circulates with the presence of drugs in their body. , when it is proven that the presence of drugs in the body remains up to several days after consuming them and, therefore, does not affect driving.

The Constitutional Court has dismissed a question of unconstitutionality and an Appeal for Amparo with the arguments, in our opinion, irrational, unscientific and violative of different fundamental rights and constitutional principles, such as the right to equality with respect to users of medications and alcohol.

Currently, this issue is still pending resolution in the European Court of Human Rights, so we will see how this story ends.