Spain's Constitutional Court strikes down Catalan law regulating cannabis clubs: what it means

Last year, the Spanish Constitutional Court had suspended the Catalan Law on Cannabis Consumer Associations, which regulated the cultivation and transport of cannabis by clubs throughout the autonomous community. Today, it’s official, It was declared unconstitutional on the grounds that such regulation does not fall under the jurisdiction of the autonomous communities but rather under that of the central government, given that cannabis is illegal. Don’t panic—this decision does not mean that Spanish cannabis clubs will disappear; quite the contrary.

A conflict of jurisdiction

Catalan law was the result of a citizens’ legislative initiative to regulate cannabis and cannabis clubs. It had been approved by the vast majority of the political parties in the Catalan parliament, with the exception of the People’s Party. It specified that club members must be of legal age and registered in a registry in order to monitor the quantities and frequency of their cannabis purchases. It also included hygiene and health control measures to prevent risks.

A similar bill had been introduced years earlier by the Parliament of Navarre and had been suspended in 2015, and then overturned by the Constitutional Court for the same reasons. Judge Ricardo Enríquez, in fact, mentions the case in his ruling. The verdict therefore comes as no surprise, though it is frustrating. In addition to the already tense political climate between Catalonia and Madrid, there is a strong demand for the regulation of cannabis clubs within the Spanish cannabis community.

The club model has been in place for years and is widely accepted, but its legal boundaries are not clearly defined. The initiative by provincial governments to regulate them had been welcomed by many associations. Ultimately, it doesn’t matter who is responsible for the regulatory framework as long as there is regulation. However, this does not appear to be a priority for the central government. The legal uncertainty means that some clubs are sometimes prosecuted in a more or less arbitrary manner.

A Look Back at the Trials Involving Spanish Clubs

The persecution of the clubs dates back to 2015, when the Supreme Court convicted members of the association Ebers in Bilbao to fines and prison sentences. The court classified the acts as drug trafficking but acknowledged the ambiguity of the law, which led to the prison sentences being overturned. Subsequently, the trials of Three Monkeys from Barcelona and from Pannagh had an even greater impact and gave the impression of a deterrence strategy. To avoid legal action, the clubs became increasingly discreet but did not, however, cease their activities.

Initially, the clubs were tried in provincial courts, which ruled that if the defendants could prove they operated on a «shared consumption» model and as a genuine nonprofit organization, then there were no grounds for prosecution. This tolerance on the part of the provincial courts likely did not sit well with the central government, which was led by the People’s Party at the time. The Attorney General’s Office, through Directive 2/2013, changed the situation: associations that were previously prosecuted for growing cannabis can now be prosecuted for drug trafficking, which justifies their trial in higher-level federal courts.

After being acquitted at the provincial level, where the court ruled that the association operated on a non-profit and exclusive basis, the members of the association Pannagh were nevertheless convicted by the Supreme Court following an appeal by the prosecution. Nevertheless, their convictions were recently overturned by the Constitutional Court, which was required to review the case because it found that the defendants had not been given the opportunity to present their case regarding their belief that growing cannabis as part of an association was legal. In doing so, the Constitutional Court acknowledges the ambiguity of the law.

The Future of Clubs

All these disputes prove that the legal uncertainty cannot continue, and the current context suggests that cannabis regulation is on the horizon in Spain. Some clubs are denouncing the lack of legal certainty for a sector that is already a reality: «There are more than 800 associations listed in the registry of legal entities maintained by the Catalan government’s Department of Justice, and according to the latest estimates, more than 4,000 people work in the sector.».

Many activist organizations are calling for political and social stakeholders to be involved in the regulatory process. CatFAC reminds that the model already exists and that all that’s needed is to bring it into compliance, suggesting in passing that turning a blind eye to the issue is hypocritical: «The prohibitionist movement is crumbling internationally in the face of the obvious ineffectiveness of its policies and the significant and dangerous costs they entail. We have a regulatory model that is already a reality in our country.».

To resolve the conflict over jurisdiction, the association is calling on the Catalan Parliament and its members to amend the repealed law so that it can be submitted to the central government in accordance with federal legislative procedure. It would thus become the Law on Cannabis Consumer Associations in Spain. A similar initiative had recently been launched by the Parliament of Navarre through a citizens' initiative and the party Podemos had positioned itself in support of nationwide legalization of cannabis.