While the U.S. continues to keep, promote, and export repressive marijuana policies, other countries, often quietly, are finding ways to mitigate the stupidity of the laws the international treaties force them to follow.
Spain is another one.
Cannabis clubs plug a gap in Spanish drugs laws
The Private Cannabis Club, with its palmate green leaves stencilled on the walls and the club’s name etched on to smoked windowpanes, is at the vanguard of a new movement of pro-cannabis campaigners in Spain. The members spotted a gap in Spain’s drugs laws which, they say, makes the activities of private clubs like these entirely legal. […]
“We’ve been open for two months and we already have 125 members,” said the association’s president, Pedro Ãlvaro Zamora. Those members pay €120 a year to belong and Zamora and his companions follow rules that seem similar to those of exclusive Mayfair clubs. A sign by the doorbell warns that only members are admitted and a committee vets new applicants, blackballing some. Alicia Méndez, a club official, said: “Potential members are interviewed and we do not accept everyone. Our members have to be responsible people, have the right profile.”
Zamora said: “This is not Amsterdam, this is not a coffee shop. This is our association’s club house and it is a private place. It is not open for everyone.”
Spain does not have a law banning consumption in private and members claim it is safer to use the club than go out to parks and smoke in public.
Authorities are pretty much allowing these to continue (sometimes even returning confiscated cannabis to the clubs) without making a big fuss about it.
Again, not a perfect solution, but better than nothing.
Olé!
http://www.spannabis.com
Some good photos of one of their events: http://www.williewortel.org/travelreports/spain2004/spannabisfebruari2004/index.html
We can dream….
It is interesting to note that the use of legal drugs, tobacco and alcohol, among teens is down, not as a result of prohibition but as a result of education and social pressures. Tens are not stupid and recognize, when allowed the information, what is harmful and what is not …
… Will the President or Congress take note of the implications of this survey? That it proves the failure of our current policies and wastes billions of dollars in a futile attempt to control rather than regulate what free people chose to put in their bodies? Drug abuse is a medical problem not a criminal one. Virtually all the criminal problems associated with drugs are the result of prohibition and the black market it creates and can only be mitigated by replacing prohibition as base policy with harm reduction. Then and only then will we get a proper handle on America’s use of drugs. Mr. Kerlikowske can pretend there is no War On Drugs all he wants, but untill prohibition ends, the War goes on.
http://www.state-journal.com/news/simple_article/4955647?page=0
….We the People Have come to the conclusion that you and the government of the United States are guilty and in violation of our freedoms guarentted by our constitution. You are also guilty of human rights violations and and theft from the American people. This theft of billions is due to your blatant lies concerning drug use and addiction, ignoring plain common sense and you pursuit of power and glory.
Mr Kerlikowske, you and your peers and predecessors are guilty in a greivious manor that has stained American society with its lies. You have torn the family cohesion so vital to a strong society , thereby weaking America its self.
Mr. Kerlikowske, you can pretend there is no War On Drugs all you want, but until prohibition ends, the War goes on and so does the weaking of the American structure. Mr.Drug Czar, Do something about your guilt or WE THE PEOPLE WILL DO IT FOR YOU!
Many thanks for your info about Music Instrument
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‘THE HASHISH CLUB’ was the name given to a the group of French writers and artists who first banded together in the years just before the Second Republic to experiment with, and record their experiences, of hashish ……. All were united in a search for new forms of expresssion and enlightenment ……. the assembled writers (and painters) comparing their symptons under hashish or opium, and speculating on how their imagination and the writer’s art might be stimulated or betrayed by drugs”.
(“The Hashish Club. — an Anthology of Drug Literature”
edited by Peter Haining, publ. 1975 by Peter Owen Limited)
Marijuana – The First Twelve Thousand Years
The Hashish Club