Belgium: Cannabis Social Clubs under attack again
On Thursday May 4, Flemish Cannabis Social Club activists were arrested and charged with money laundering and illegal resale of cannabis. Among them are members of the Club Trekt Uw Plant, founded in 2006 by Joep Oomen. The indictment targets the production and distribution activities of the club, which now has over 400 members.
The organization Trekt Uw Plant was the first Cannabis Social Club in Belgium to benefit from the authorization to grow one cannabis plant per person. for all citizens of the kingdom in Belgium. The CSC then inspired the creation of the first cannabis association in Uruguay, entitled Tira La Tu Planta, and other similar associations across the country.
It is on this legal basis that the CSC has brought together a large number of individual growers. Trekt Uw Plant won the right to legally cultivate cannabis in April 2010, after a series of legal political battles.
Mambo Social Club, Hasselt's CSC, had been charged with facilitating and inciting drug use, and possession, production and sale of cannabis. It appealed, but was eventually acquitted of the charges of facilitating and inciting drug use. Mambo retained the right to exist, but lost the right to grow as a group.
Michel Degens, the founder of Mambo, presented the case on May 2 at a press conference. conference at the European Parliament in which he explains: «In my opinion, what's needed is recognition. We need to recognize that smoking a joint doesn't make you a criminal. You can use cannabis responsibly and without harming others.»
This third raid against Belgian Cannabis Social Clubs is a further blow to these associations, which have up to now complied with Belgian law. The former Belgian Prime Minister recently confided be in favor of the Belgian state regulating the sale and production of cannabis.
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Jean-Michel Sinte
10 May 2017 at 10 h 37 min
Hello,
It was with sadness and revulsion that we learned of the arrest of several activists from the Antwerp cannabis social club, and the club's closure, sending 450 members back to criminal networks. This prohibitionist policy will not go unchallenged by activists for the regulation of cannabis in Belgium. Under the façade of tolerance, the authorities are above all spying on and hunting down consumers and producers for personal use, or even sick people who use this plant. The right of equitable access to medication enshrined in European treaties is also flouted, with prescription patients who go to the Netherlands, where cannabis is a medicine, being searched with guns and dogs, and prosecuted in the same way as those who grow their own plants. The way is now clear for the criminal markets, who must surely be satisfied with the fact that law and order have put a stop to citizens' initiatives. The fight isn't over, it's just beginning. See you soon!