Interview with Bernardo Soriano on RNE3’s ‘Hoy empieza todo’

Interview with our founder and co-director on the radio programme “Hoy empieza todo” on Radio 3, Radio Nacional de España, about the German Government’s Council of Ministers approving the bill to regulate access to cannabis through home growing and cannabis associations or cannabis social clubs.

Interviewer: Bernardo Soriano is spokesperson for the association Regulación Responsable, a lawyer and an expert in cannabis regulation models. Tell us what the Germans have done:

Bernardo: Well, when the Germans formed their government coalition two years ago, one of the goals they set for the legislature, driven mainly by the Greens and the Left, was to regulate cannabis. It is true that many things were discussed that were going to be part of that regulation, and in the end they are going to regulate, in a somewhat limited way, a cannabis social club model with fairly strict limits. It is a first step, but there is still a long way to go. Compared with Spain, it would fall well short of what already operates here without regulation.

Interviewer: That’s interesting, because I’ve heard two views: one about whether the Spanish model was similar or not, and then people saying this bill, which has not yet been passed, has left everyone unhappy, the cannabis clubs because smokers are still demonised, and others who say it goes too far, both extremes. First, what is the Spanish model? Is the Spanish model ‘do whatever you like’?

Bernardo: You could certainly put it that way, because for 30 years we have watched different models develop in Spain. For example, we have unregulated seed banks turning over hundreds of millions a year, we have non-psychoactive CBD cannabis shops selling everywhere, as you know, which are not regulated, and there have been thousands of cannabis social clubs for 30 years that are not regulated either. It seems the authorities just let it be, crack down every now and then, and have not been able to tackle the problem. It is true that the last legislature did a lot to stop caricaturing cannabis, like the joint jokes you mentioned earlier: there were as many as four bills, one in the Senate and three in Congress, but none got the support needed to pass.

Interviewer: Why not?

Bernardo: Basically because the Socialist Party voted against. The PP and VOX are completely opposed to cannabis regulation. The Socialist Party has always been ambiguous, but when it came to the crunch it always voted against. There were different proposals, one from Esquerra, one from Más País, one from Unidas Podemos and one in the Senate from the mixed group made up of many parties. When it came to the votes, the PSOE voted with the PP and they failed. That is basically what happened.

Interviewer: We mentioned joints, Bob Marley, that image held by people who don’t know much about it… Could the fact that Germany regulates cannabis use, more or less ambitiously, change that image a little?

Bernardo: I think everyone living in Spain knows that cannabis use is completely normalised and integrated into our society; that is why people joke about joints. It is so common that what seems strange is that it is not legal. A foreigner coming to Spain can go to cannabis clubs, buy CBD everywhere, buy seeds and go to the biggest trade fair in Europe, in a sector that also turns over many millions of euros, and if you tell them it is illegal they simply do not believe you. The fact that it is already integrated and normalised also makes people say: if I can already smoke, why regulate, what’s the problem? The approach here should be different, because when people say, as in Germany, that the black market will be curbed, that is not true, and the same goes for collecting taxes. First of all, a cannabis social club model does not give access to everyone who uses cannabis: in Spain 4 million people use cannabis each year, and perhaps only around 200,000 do so through clubs; the other 3.8 million buy on the black market, increasingly less hashish. If we want to curb the black market, we have to regulate cannabis comprehensively, not just social clubs. Moreover, cannabis clubs will not generate taxes, because they do not sell marijuana: they are supposedly associations of people who grow a product together and then share it at cost price. It is as if we set up a cooperative to grow tomatoes, paid the costs and then shared them out. In the end we need to think about the purpose of regulation: collecting taxes, curbing the black market or protecting clubs, which is all very well but falls far short of the goals so often proclaimed. And above all, the lack of regulation of clubs in Spain has basically distorted the model itself: what were originally small associations of people growing cannabis in a cross-cutting, democratic and participatory way have basically become shops where people go to buy and consume cannabis. I am not criticising that, it has to exist, but the lack of regulation has produced these effects that were not originally intended. So the only way to raise taxes, protect workers, stop people being fined, protect clubs and curb the black market is much broader regulation, while the most important thing to protect against is cannabis sales turning into McDonald’s. We need to avoid ‘McDonaldisation’ through a licensing system with limits on holding multiple licences and on vertical integration, and that also respects Spain’s own model, cannabis social clubs.

Interviewer: Very interesting. I don’t know if there are many models; we knew the Amsterdam one, which has been changing, but rather in the opposite direction to what you might expect, towards more regulation and harder access.

Bernardo: Well, what has really existed in the Netherlands all these years is not so much a system of regulation as a system of tolerance. In fact, it is a failed system, because it allows money laundering by the State. Coffee shops can buy on the black market, often products from conflict zones such as Afghanistan, Pakistan and other places, and once the product is in the coffee shop it is laundered and distributed. Two years ago the Dutch government set up a licensing system very similar to Uruguay’s, granting 10 licences to very large companies that can supply the coffee shops, thereby eliminating the ‘back door’. In Uruguay, for example, there is a comprehensive system, but instead of shops as in the United States it is a state-run system in which four companies, if I remember correctly, hold licences and supply all the pharmacies in the country that want to sell cannabis. Social clubs are also regulated in a restricted way to avoid that distortion, so they do not become shops and everything works in a somewhat more democratic and transparent way, and home growing is allowed. In the end each country follows its own characteristics and what already exists there. Here in Spain, as we said, if we regulated clubs the way Germany intends to and nothing else, to put it bluntly, it would be a drop in the ocean, because it would not achieve the goals we are fighting for: curbing the black market, above all collecting taxes, protecting users and minors, and not being fined for carrying five joints in your pocket and having them taken from you along with a fine. That, let’s say, is where we should start: the bare minimum.