http://www.encod.org/info/LES-CLUBS-SOCIAUX-DU-CANNABIS-EN.html

LES CLUBS SOCIAUX DU CANNABIS EN ESPAGNE : UNE ALTERNATIVE NORMALISATRICE EN MARCHE
Publié le vendredi 28 janvier 2011 23:01, par encod . modifié le vendredi 28 janvier 2011 23:00

Source : Series sur la réforme législative des Politiques de Drogues Nr. 9

Par Martín Barriuso Alonso

Janvier 2011

Les Clubs Sociaux du Cannabis (CSC) sont des associations de consommateurs qui s’organisent pour s’auto-approvisionner sans avoir recours au marché noir. Ils sont basés sur le fait que la seule consommation de drogues n’a jamais été un délit dans la législation espagnole. Profitant de ce vide juridique, il existe depuis plusieurs années, des clubs privés qui produisent du cannabis pour le distribuer, sans but lucratif et en circuit fermé, à des consommateurs adultes.

Depuis leur apparition, en 2002, les CSC ont permis à quelques milliers de gens d’arrêter de financer le marché noir et de connaître la qualité et l’origine de ce qu’ils consomment, en créant de ce fait des postes de travail et des sources d’impôts, ceci sans transgresser les traités de l’ONU sur les drogues.

Ce travail résume la nature et la forme du fonctionnement de ces clubs, en posant le débat sur l’opportunité de mettre de côté des modèles alternatifs de régulation basés sur la création d’un circuit commercial ouvert, semblable à celui de l’alcool ou du tabac. En faisant le choix d’un modèle géré par les consommateurs, sans but lucratif, on évite les risques inhérents à un marché dominé par la recherche de bénéfices économiques.

Conclusions et recommandations

En Espagne, depuis l’apparition des clubs sociaux du cannabis (CSC) en 2002, des milliers de gens ont pu s’approvisionner légalement en cannabis pour leur consommation personnelle en exerçant un contrôle de qualité.

Profitant d’un vide juridique existant dans la législation espagnole, et à travers d’un système de registre légal de groupes de consommateurs et de culture collective, les clubs se sont multipliés sans cesse dans tout le pays.

Le boom des clubs a eu lieu après plusieurs jugements de la Cour Suprême, qui ne considèrent plus la culture pour usage personnel comme un délit puisqu’elle ne se dirige pas vers le trafic.

Il est temps que le débat sur les politiques des drogues ne se réduise plus à la légalisation ou à la prohibition, mais qu’il considère des façons alternatives d’aborder le phénomène des drogues.

----------------

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/dec/28/cannabis-clubs-spanish-drug-...

Cannabis clubs plug a gap in Spanish drugs laws
Member-only clubs spring up as smokers exploit law allowing consumption of cannabis in private

Giles Tremlett in Paracuellos de Jarama
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 28 December 2010 17.19 GMT

The sign on the door says it all, but the acrid smell and smoke wafting across the Private Cannabis Club in the Madrid dormitory town of Paracuellos de Jarama are proof that it lives up to its name. "This is the one place we can smoke in peace," said a punter at the bar, mixing tobacco and dried, shredded cannabis leaf in a long rolling paper.

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.

The spacious Paracuellos de Jarama club, in a former restaurant in a town overlooking Madrid's Barajas airport, is equipped with a bar, kitchen, billiard tables and TV screens. It is the most sophisticated of up to 40 cannabis clubs that have sprung up in garages and back rooms around Spain since campaigners worked out that laws making it illegal to consume in public did not apply to private, member-only, clubs.

"We've been open for two months and we already have 125 members," said the association's president, Pedro Álvaro 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. Zamora said: "The club recognises that cannabis is not good for everyone. We propose a responsible form of consumption. Not everyone should smoke. We know there are risks." Club members can bring their own cannabis or share in the club's own stock. They can even take some away as long as they sign for it and the cannabis is for personal consumption.

Although the club house, which is registered with the local authorities, is left alone by police, members can get into trouble if caught carrying cannabis. "It is illegal to buy, sell or transport, so you can be fined if caught with it on you." The club offers legal help to fined members.

Supplying the club is another problem, as dealing in cannabis is illegal.

"We are fighting for the legal right to grow it," said Zamora. The club applied for a medical licence to cultivate cannabis but was turned down. Then police raided its secret plantation and destroyed the plants. Zamora said they would challenge in court the right to destroy a plantation devoted to supplying a private club: "We are people who work and pay taxes. We are not delinquents."

Some judges have ordered police to give confiscated cannabis back to clubs. "They have told them to return it on the basis that there is no threat to public health."

Zamora stressed that the club's suppliers did not belong to the drugs underworld: "We don't go to the black market to buy. We know farmers who cultivate cannabis and can provide us."

The club also campaigns on laws. "Prohibition does not work. Cannabis has been consumed for centuries and will continue to be … for centuries. Prohibition creates an illegal market and all that brings with it. It's better to educate people than spend money on prohibition that fails."

• this article was amended on 4 January 2011. The original referred to Paraceullos de Jarama. This has been corrected.