In Spain, the idea that the cannabis movement must be stopped took shape in 2002, when the Government Delegate for the National Drug Plan stated that he would consult the State Attorney General’s Office on how to take action against magazines and grow shops that promoted “a clear culture of advocating drug use.”

In response, Fernando Sequeros Sazatornil, a prosecutor at the Supreme Court, stated in 2003 that the sale of cannabis seeds and cultivation equipment, as well as their advertising, is legal, provided that the limits of home cultivation are not exceeded.

After this first attempt failed, Interior Minister Ángel Acebes, from the People’s Party (PP), announced later in 2003 that a panel of experts would be set up “so that they could pursue, with even greater determination, those engaged in such a harmful and damaging activity for our young people.”

The so-called “Acebes Plan” aimed to ban seeds, grow shops, and magazines, and even introduce mandatory reporting. Fortunately, the People’s Party’s electoral defeat in 2004 prevented any legal changes from being implemented.

In 2015, with the People’s Party once again in government, the Spanish government tried again, this time by reforming the Citizen Security Law. The reform increased fines for users and home growers whose plants were visible to the public, while also intensifying the crackdown on clubs such as ours.

In both cases, unexpected consequences emerged that benefited home growers and consumers.

By imposing fines on plants visible to the public, the reform of the Citizen Security Law also reinforced the legal status of plants that are not publicly visible, provided they are intended for personal cultivation. Thus, cannabis cultivation had already been decriminalized in Spain, but the new Citizen Security Law confirmed this even more explicitly.

In 2015, the case against Pannagh (one of Spain’s pioneering cannabis user associations, founded in Bilbao in February 2003) made it clear that home cultivation is an activity with no criminal significance and involves a natural cycle:

“Cultivation exclusively for the personal use of cannabis by home growers is contrary to the law, but has no criminal significance. Cannabis, as is well known, is one of the narcotic substances with a natural harvest cycle.” (Supreme Court, 2015).

From the Legal Grey Area to Responsible Regulation

In 2002, the Basque Observatory on Drug Addiction (now known as GABIA – Observatory on Addictions) set out a series of criteria for determining whether someone is a home grower: whether they consume what they grow, the quantity cultivated, membership in an association, the absence of equipment associated with drug trafficking, and the location of the plants.

In any case, home growers continue to operate in an ambiguous legal environment, and even the cannabis movement spent years without a common proposal. It is highly likely that different stakeholders in the cannabis movement mean very different things when they talk about normalizing cannabis.

In 2016, various stakeholders within the cannabis movement came together to present a unified proposal: The Five Pillars of Comprehensive Cannabis Regulation.

The first pillar focuses on home cultivation, addressing key aspects such as growing, transportation, storage, possession, and driving.

It proposes annual production equivalent to up to ten grams per user per day, an amount that meets the needs of the vast majority of growers and consumers while providing a solid legal basis, since it is half the quantity considered to constitute a significant amount under Supreme Court case law (2001).

In addition to this pillar, a comprehensive legal opinion already exists supporting its suitability, along with the key points for its defense and legal arguments.

Thus, almost all Spanish home growers believe that a supply equivalent to ten grams per day would meet their needs.

Tomatoes vs. Pacharán

Beyond accepting the solution of ten grams per day, the statement of principles adopted by cannabis home growers identifies two models that are very familiar to activists: the tomato model and the pacharán model.

The tomato model and the pacharán model are two theoretical and sociological concepts used by activists and experts in Spain to discuss and define how home cannabis cultivation should be regulated and normalized in comparison with other substances commonly consumed in everyday life.

Both models are used to argue in legal proceedings that personal cultivation is not a drug-trafficking offense, but rather a private self-supply activity.

As we can see, “there’s something fishy going on”—or, more literally, “there are tomatoes here”—and these models could represent long-term aspirations for a society in which cannabis use has become fully normalized.