Barcelona's pot boom and bust: the uncertain fate of cannabis clubs in "the Amsterdam of southern Europe".

• Author: Politzer, Malia
• Position: Spain

IT WAS 7 P.M. on July Io, 2014. Albert Centellas was smoking a joint in the spacious lounge of Club Kali, a quasi-legal cannabis club an hour's drive south of Barcelona. He heard a loud bang, like a thunderclap, and then another. The police were breaking down the door.

Dozens of officers in riot gear rushed in, guns drawn, and ordered everyone to stand with their hands above their heads while the remaining cops, aided by drug-sniffing dogs, searched the club. Centellas' arms ached as he and the others were held at gunpoint for the next two hours. The search ended with the seizure of all the club's marijuana products, and with the arrest of the club's president, vice president, treasurer, doorman, and two of its cannabis gardeners, on charges of money laundering and crimes against public health.

The next day, the police raided a second club, the Associacion Independiente Recreativa de Autoconsumo y Medicinal (AIRAM) in Barcelona. Over the next several months, dozens of other cannabis social clubs throughout Catalonia would be closed down on drug trafficking and public health-related charges.

"We take a risk, because we understand that sometimes taking risks and creating conflict is the only way to transform the law," explains Albert Tio, president of both AIRAM and La Federacio d'Associacions Cannabiques Autoregulades de Catalunya (FEDCAC), an association of Barcelona's cannabis clubs. Tio's movement aims to expand the legal use of marijuana in Spain, and perhaps one day introduce a fully legal commercial trade in pot.

Cannabis social clubs are central to this strategy. The members of these noncommercial collectives pool their resources to cultivate enough marijuana to meet their personal needs, then consume the pot in members-only establishments. In 2011, just 40 such cannabis clubs existed in Catalonia. By 2014, according to Tio, that number had jumped to more than 500 with over 165,000 members--earning Barcelona the nickname "the Amsterdam of southern Europe."

The clubs are at least arguably following the law. Spain allows individuals to grow a limited amount of marijuana for personal use, and there is a widespread tolerance in Spanish culture for shared consumption. Spanish law doesn't penalize people for consuming cannabis products so long as they are consumed in private, just for buying or transporting them. But as we'll see, the clubs' legal status is anything but certain. Over the past year, an aggressive crackdown in Barcelona shut many of them down. The remainder exist in a legal gray area.

But that could soon change. Catalonia's cannabis activists have drafted a citizens' initiative called the Rosa Verde--the Green Rose--that would formally legalize and regulate the Cannabis Social Clubs, bringing a long legal cat-and-mouse game to an end.

Drug Reform Across Europe

The liberalization of marijuana laws has been slowly spreading across Europe. In 2001, Portugal became the first country on the continent to officially abolish all criminal penalties for possession of drugs for personal use, including hard drugs such as heroin and cocaine. Since then, Switzerland, the Czech Republic, and Belgium have decriminalized the possession of small quantities of pot for personal use, though smokers may still be subject to administrative fees and misdemeanor charges. The Czechs have also legalized medical marijuana recently, as has France. Italian legislators are considering a bill that would largely decriminalize the distribution, sale, and consumption of marijuana throughout the nation. In...