Episode Transcript

Trevor: We're back.

Kirk: Hey, yes, we are back in the studio, Trevor.

Trevor: In the studio.

Kirk: Yeah, yeah.

Trevor: So last we spoke with the the audience we were walking around Dauphin and talking about you going to Spain and Morocco and you are now back from Spain and Morocco with a whole whack of stories.

Kirk: Yeah we've got, We've got about a potential six episodes coming. We've got we've got this one we're doing today. We're looking at the cannabis clubs in Spain. We're gonna talk about the resale shops, CBD shops in Spain. We've got we've got a story from Peter Vermeil. He was associated with Biosource botanicals. And he all I'm gonna say about Peter, he's came up with a technique that he takes the plant and puts the whole plant into a bottle.

Trevor: Excellent.

Kirk: Yeah, that'll that's a cool story. Stay tuned for that one. And I've got a I've got possibly a couple stories out of Morocco also.

Trevor: No, and those all sound great, but today we are focusing on cannabis clubs in Spain. And it's because you like to have an overall thesis on this, your overall thesis seems to be is cannabis legal in Spain? So Kirk, is cannabis legal in Spain?

Kirk: Yumm yes

Trevor: Ish.

Kirk: Yeah yeah yes and no. The thing about Spain is that hemp is legal, whereas marijuana's not.

Trevor: And is their definition still the point three percent? Is that correct. There that's their definite Yeah. Same plant, but if you're less than point three percent THC, it's hemp.

Kirk: Yes, I believe that's international. I think that's an international qualification. So yeah, if you you can grow hemp. But the other thing that's interesting about cannabis is that it's decriminalized. So if you are found to have marijuana, cannabis in your possession, or if you're found you know, growing it, it's it's decriminalized. Now you are allowed to grow your own cannabis in Spain. It cannot be seen by the public. It can't be publicly seen.

Trevor: So I can grow it in my living room, but not on my front in my front flower bed.

Kirk: Correct. But if you but if you're growing it in your living room, then it cannot be seen from the front of the house.

Trevor: Oh, so I can't grow them from my living room window.

Kirk: No. No, it cannot be seen. So cannabis cannot be seen.

Trevor: Okay.

Kirk: But Spain has a long history because I mean they're right across the strait from Morocco. And Morocco is still the number one producer of hash. I mean it still sends a lot of hash to Europe. So Spain is right in line to the rest of Europe from Morocco. So Spain has a long history of of of cannabis being part of their culture. People speak very often everywhere I went how cannabis is understood that you can't have it publicly. So tourists go there and they get themselves in trouble because they will you know there's cannabis clubs. Right. Right? And you go to these clubs and get cannabis and then the tourists leave and they they get in trouble and fined if they're out in public with it, right? So the citizens can grow their own this is another interesting thing but nobody really knows how many plants they can grow. Most of the references and I and I and I went online to search some international law firms and I'll have those references on our webpage, but every law firm that I went to and also I went to Leafly and I went to other, you know, more readily available cannabis resources on the net, you know, laws in Spain, everyone refers to two is the untold number that you're allowed to grow. No one really knows if I can give you my two so now you can grow four. So that's not really understood. But as long as it's not seen from the public, cannabis is pretty much ignored ignored, right?

Trevor: So and I'm we might be getting ahead of ourselves, but it was a question that I think I asked before you left Dauphin. If you Kirk the tourist goes into a cannabis club, can you then buy cannabis there? Like how do you as a non Spanish resident get cannabis or illegally can you?

Kirk: Yeah, see, that's a good question. I was basically told that these cannabis clubs dispense cannabis.

Trevor: Okay.

Kirk: We don't use the word sold. And I'll get into it later into as we go into deeper into this episode about how various people, how various people interpret that and different clubs interpret it differently. So it's a really nuanced, it's very nuanced in Spain. Because Spain also is a situation where provinces, jurisdictions, I mean, it's an ancient culture. So yeah, they have a federal government called you know the Spanish government, but they also have their provincial governments, but they also have their regional governments and the jurisdictional governments. And one of the things Peter was telling me is that in some situations the mayor of a of a jurisdiction may actually have more authority than a federal federal MP or a federal politician. So if the mayor likes you, well, maybe you're allowed to grow hemp over there, right? If the mayor doesn't like you, then maybe your hemp plant's not over there. Though the federal government says you can grow hemp in in Spain, but that'll be the Peter story. Okay. In regards to the cannabis clubs, if you Google, go on Google Maps, and this is what I did before I left. I went on Google Maps and I Googled cannabis clubs in Barcelona. Pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop. And Course I Googled it and I became registered and I and and most of these clubs say if you're coming to Spain, register with us.

Trevor: Right. So you you registered it like ahead of time before you left Canada?

Kirk: Yeah, I registered with a club and I wouldn't tell you when we were doing our walk around, but it was called G13. And G13 looked like it had a real Moroccan type of vibe to it, the the web page. We arrived and go, hi, I'm here, and I told you I was coming, and how do I get in? Well, they weren't prepared for me. When they found out that I was looking for cold call stories, they were got a little nervous and essentially said, No, you can't come in, right? So we asked very kindly if Michelle could go use the washroom. I oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So Michelle got in, you know, and they buzz the door, the buzz the door opens up, she goes inside, you can waff of cloud of cannabis smoke comes out. Michelle wanders in, used the bathroom, and then reported back to me. And she reported back essentially that it was a kind of a cozy little place. There was lots of tapestry on the walls and people were sitting around consuming cannabis. That's what she saw. So we went around and went to different cannabis stores until I finally got into one. And yeah, so we walked in and there'll be pictures on our website. You go up, you're walking down the street, you got your Google Maps, and you go, Oh, there's apparently a cannabis club near here someplace. So you start looking at the front of the buildings and you're looking and you go, Okay, there's a door over there. That door has a camera up there, and there's a buzzer. So you buzz the door and hello, and they go and the door buzzes. So you walk in and I walk into a small little atrium. In this one, there was there was a whole bunch of certificates on the wall. And the certificates were from Barcelona. So it looked like they had licenses from the city. They had rules and they had, you know, 18 years old, you can't come in with cannabis. You can't, you know, the rules of the club. I introduced myself and it's twenty dollars American to join these clubs for a year. They take a copy of your identification, and you are now a member of the club. So as a member of the club, I was allowed to go in. So I went into the club and of course as the you can s you can smell the consumption of cannabis. But in this particular club, they had a desk like like this like this counter right here in front of me, and behind me was a guy sitting as Rene is, and there's cannabis laid out here. Obviously, and and these guys told me not to identify them, so I'm not identifying this club. Okay. But obviously I'm purchasing cannabis.

Trevor: But but but you said the the wording was specific.

Kirk: The wording was specific. The wording was dispense. Don't say sell. And I did not want to buy a pipe that I was only gonna throw away. So because I walked in, I secured a pre-roll and I sat down and started talking to people. I got some really interesting stories. There is a medical program in Spain

Trevor: I was gonna ask about that because you know, not surprisingly, nurse and a pharmacist, we talk about medical a lot. Is it am I a medical patient in these places? Do I do that differently? Is that something we're getting into in this episode?

Kirk: I researched the medical program. I talked to people about the medical program, and everyone pretty much said to me that the medical program is just so cumbersome. Does it sound familiar?

Trevor: Sounds like Canada. Yeah.

Kirk: It's just so cumbersome that people gravitate to these clubs. Now, it's my understanding, it's sort of kind of like what was going on in Vancouver pre-legalization, I think, on the West Coast or some of the other places, bigger cities in Canada. Again, this is also vague. No one I I don't speak the language. I didn't get into the nuances of a lot of the stories because language barriers. But essentially, what these cannabis clubs are, it's a place for people to come and consume their cannabis because there's nowhere else to consume cannabis. Right? And so these clubs surfaced. And the and as we get into the story, I hear different stories, but some presume that some of the cannabis is coming from the neighborhood. So by being a member of the club, you walk in and you can dispense your cannabis and you're not buying it. So I ended up going to two clubs in Barcelona, and I went to one club in Madrid. How cannabis is secured in these places is a is a wonder to me because one of the biggest things they talk to me about is that in Spain, if you are seen making money off cannabis, you will be fined. There is no criminal record, but you will be fined. So if you are seen selling cannabis, you will be fined. If you are seen transporting greats amount of cannabis, you will be fined. So how these clubs get the cannabis.

Trevor: Must be small amounts and a backpack kind of thing.

Kirk: I don't know. I don't know. And and I would I was trying to be a polite Canadian and I was trying to gather stories and and taking pictures was frowned upon. And memory is not always good when you're in the throes of things. So so you know, so so I'm I'm trying to I'm trying to gather all this stuff, what's going on around me, how much cannabis was actually there. I mean, I I was in wonder, there's a lot of cannabis on this counter, and the guy was very proud of the Moroccan hash. He was very proud of this, and I could have spent a half hour just talking about the cannabis in front of me. So yeah, so the first people I meet in in the club that they don't want to tell me who they are, or tell you guys was Sebastian, Valentina and Aurora.

Trevor: All right, so we're gonna hear from Sebastian first.

Kirk: Yeah, and Sebastian helps me understand a little bit about how these clubs operate.

Sebastian: I I from Colombia I am twenty three years old. And I work in a cannabis club in Barcelona. So right now the law about cannabis is difficult because you only can smoke in private places, so in your house or in your hotel. But you can't have marijuana with you when you are when you are on the street. And you also can't smoke if you cannot smoke on the street, you cannot carry with you. So we try to don't say buy or shop cannabis, say dispense. In on the door we have activities. Okay. So we do our we do on the month a lot of things.

Kirk: Club member activities.

Trevor: So Kirk just and when I first listened to this and and it makes sense now, but wow. As a as someone from Canada, from North America, I don't think about South American tourists, you know, leaving South America and going somewhere because, you know, I always think of  people going to Colombia. But I guess it makes a lot of sense that A, people not surprising, people from Colombia go other places, and it makes sense from someone from a Spanish speaking country to go to Spain. And it probably makes sense that someone from South America's English is good enough that when they're in Spain, their English is good enough to talk to you. So yeah. Columbia Columb Colombian kinda makes sense, doesn't it?

Kirk: Well well, what you'll hear, what you'll feel what you'll quickly pick up on, many of the people I'm interviewing in the in this episode are all from away. They're not Spaniards. There is one individual as we get closer into this, but yeah, this is the other thing. These are cannabis clubs of Spain, so that Spanish people have a place to go and consume a decriminalized product for medicinal reasons, right?  Depending on who I'm talking to. But it's full of expats from all over the place. And as you as you're listening to this, it's it's a noisy video, but I'm I'm actually re recording this in the atrium as I'm waiting to get permission to go inside. Because he had to phone a manager to get me or an owner, whoever, he had to get me inside. So this Sebastian's telling me his story in the atrium, people are being buzzed in. And as soon as I walk into this club, it's like the door of the studio. There's the door in, and right as I walk in is the counter I'm talking about. And he was bragging about his Moroccan hash. And and of course I'm just trying to figure out the paradoxes and the legalities, the ethics, and oh my god, what I've got myself into, and that Moroccan hash looks really good. Do I buy a pipe and what do I do with a pipe in Spain? Do I leave it here and come back? And so I just acquired a pre roll and went off and started talking to people. So the next person I talked to is Valentina.

Trevor: Which I gotta say is a very cool name.

Kirk: The accents, man. The accents. It was like being in a European movie. The no offense to to my relationship with my wife, but there's some very beautiful women in Spain. And so I'm talking to talking to her and she explains to me how and she's an employee of the club. Okay. And she's telling me about how cannabis is a very personal thing. And as I'm listening to her, and I and again, I don't wanna I don't wanna be I don't want to say anything bad, but I'm watching her going, you could be a helicopter girl at a folk festival right now. Like they like what I started realizing talking to people is that cannabis is very universal, and there seems to be a person that's drawn the cannabis, and I think you're gonna hear it.

Trevor: Are you pr forwarding stereotypes, Kirk?

Kirk: I am I am I am forwarding stereotypes and and and this is a very nice lady who tells me about her experience personal experiences with with cannabis and and yeah, so this is the next story. Okay. Introduce yourself and tell me a cannabis story.

Valentina: I can do it. My name is Valentina and my cannabis story, I have a lot. I come from Colombia so obviously it's very different how it works socially and the influence of cannabis in my country, in in Spain, you know. For me personally, my experience has been really kind of shocking because I think here people have kind of more kind of conscious about why they're actually smoking. Obviously depending on their own health and body and everything.  When I started smoking, I mean I had kind of twenty years or something like that. But when I don't know, maybe it was my my my entorrent. I didn't have kind of knowledge about what is indica, what is sativa and everything. So I have learned so much here and talking with people. Yeah, I don't know, I think it's it is and it's in it and it is also very personal. I I think people shouldn't know shouldn't how to medical. how to diagnose the their their themselves. Yeah, I definitely think it's medicine. It's sacred. I I think it's a sacred plant. I  have a vision of a plant kind of very difficult di different. I respect it. Respect it very much. I think it's beautiful. I think it smells really nice. And I have a good relationship with the plant. That's why I also think very personal. I think it's a kind of a be I don't know, kind of an island for me. It helps me a lot. It helps me to be very creative. I'm also an artist. So I use it when I'm creating when I'm when I not when I want to be inspired because I think I already very creative but it helps me to do the things that I cannot do when I'm not maybe smoking. Okay. So it helps me to it gives me this boost of energy to create the things that I already have in my mind.  That's why I think I love it very much. It helps me to to do my things. It it doesn't stop me like

Trevor: the next person you talk to we go a little bit more into the m medical end of of cannabis and her training and and this one is not from a Spanish speaking country, but but like you said, another another expat in Spain. Who are we gonna chat to next?

Kirk: Yeah, Aurora. And basically I walked in, hi, can I talk to you? And she sat down, very chill young lady, Italian lady. And this was w I think we sat together for a good half hour, talking about all sorts of stuff. And and this is my conversation with Aurora and how it's a good conversation. Let li sh she speaks about how cannabis is medicine for her. She te speaks to about the scene, the cannabis scene in Spain, and she gives me a little bit better understanding of what's happening in these in these clubs.

Aurora: I'm Aurora, I am 25, I'm an Italian living in Barcelona. I'm an osteopath. Do you know osteopathy?

Kirk: No,.

Aurora: The manual treatment. Like it's alternative medicine. I've always been interested in alternative medicine and something like that. And also I suffer from chronic headache since I was a kid. And they started medicating me like to just don't have this bad feelings during study, something like that. They started telling me that it was like for my hormones, from growing up and I stopped medicate like I don't like medicine, that didn't change that much and I started smoking weed. Illegal because in Italian it's illegal, it don't concern the any type of recipe and anything, it's just it's just drugs. And and I really start feeling better. I came here for doing a master and then I started living here.  Like the life is really cheap here and there is the scene and now I'm working in two clinics. In what? In two clinics, yeah, as a private.

Kirk: Is is cannabis medicinally legal in Spain?

Aurora: Actually I don't know really good the thing, but yes. Hundred percent yes. Here like the people see it really different. Like it's a part of the life, part of the social life. Is it not seen as a drug because here you see other type of drugs uncontrolled. And here is like really controlled. There are these bar and I think this is really compared from Italy and other cities in Europe is really better here.

Kirk: So in Italy s cannabis is still illegal for medicinal.

Aurora: Under percent illegal.

Kirk: In Spain. Cannabis is is used medicinally, you're using it in your practice, do you use it? Can you prescribe it?

Aurora: No, no, no.

Kirk: Okay. Can you have cannabis prescribed to you from a doctor?

Aurora: I don't know actually because I'm I'm here like less than two years.  So I'm not in the Spanish system, you know. Like for now I'm a tourist. I am not full here. So I think I cannot get this just because I'm not like I don't have the card that I'm I have a doctor here. I have private insurance for now. But I think just for this. I think in the locals the private the public system yes. Like you I have one patient that told me she went to a psychologist or something like that and then during therapy and like combinated treatment they give them the prescription.

Kirk: Okay.

Trevor: Okay, Kirk, we kind of danced around it a little bit. But there are people producing Cannabis. And there are people consuming cannabis in this club, but the we'll call it the supply chain seems a little unclear. How do we get cannabis in these clubs?

Kirk: Well, let's listen to Aurora. She sort of tells me she this is where I'm getting the hint now. Where was I in this? We Michelle and I traveled for six and a half weeks. And I think this is day one. I you know, we're doing touristy stuff and you know, we're we're doing the Spanish touristy stuff and and of course Michelle's very patient with me and I got my Google Maps and you know, cannabis club, cannabis club, you know, and oh walking by a cannabis club, Michelle. Oh, okay, let's go in the cannabis. So so as we're doing our touristy stuff and and Michelle and I are walking nine to ten, fifteen kilometers a day, right? We we were averaging nine kilometers a day just walking, right? And so yeah, so she This is my first day. This is the first hint about how cannabis is grown in in the houses.

Aurora: No no no no actually you cannot smoke in the street you only can smoke in a private place place or at your home. At your home you can have like two plants.

Kirk: Okay, you can grow.

Aurora: Yeah, legally.

Kirk: Legally recreationally or legally medical?

Aurora: I think recreationally like there is no difference in this if it's your home.

Kirk: Okay. Interesting.

Aurora: The only problem if you smoke around, you smoke in the street the police can come and ta and throw it away easily or pay not that bad.

Trevor: So Kirk I don't know very much about Spain at all, but from a few things I know that Barcelona is in Catalonia. I know Catalonia is a a kinda like Quebec here, that it it has it wants to break, some people in Catalonia want to break away from the rest of Spain, so it definitely seems to have its own personality, we'll say. And as you were alluding to earlier, it's it's just a it's a little different from the rest of Spain. So how does Catalonia and Barcelona and cannabis and where cannabis comes from, how's that kind of go together?

Kirk: An another gentleman, as as I said earlier before we went into Aurora, was that this is the first time I hit upon it. So it became one of my tick box questions every time I met someone about cannabis who was asking about it. One fella in another club basically sat down, he told me, turn off the recorder. So I turned off the recording, he said, What is happening is that in Barcelona there is rent control. Now this is a theory, right? This is alleged. This is not fact.

Trevor: Well the the fact they have rent control is true.

Kirk: Yes, but but but how the fella who told me this story and so I'm once removed telling you this story is not fact, people. This is what I understand. So there's rent control. So there are generations of family that live in the same apartment. So it's built for people, density. So rent control. So people live in these houses and what I think is happening is that In one particular facility, one apartment building, one apartment might just be the grow op for the building. So you grow your two plants allegedly, that apparently you can grow two plants. I grow two plants, but I'm gonna give you my two plants to grow. So now there's a room of plants. So my understanding is a lot of this cannabis that's grown in this way makes it to the neighborhood cannabis club. That's one theory. But then how did the neighborhood cannabis club get Moroccan hash?

Trevor: I've got a cousin.

Kirk: I got a cousin that I got a cousin that brought it. Yeah, yeah. So so there's there's there's a lot of unknowns, right? The thing about Spain is that with the decriminalization of cannabis and the legalization of hemp and the presumably medical program that no one seems to go to, cannabis is an acceptable product in Spain. But not legal, well, but decriminalized. So what's happened, of course, in g ingenuity, people have come up with a framework that everyone operates on. So one cannabis club I went into said that it was all local cannabis. One cannabis club I went into obviously wasn't. But like I said to you, and again, I'm I'm getting confused about what we said in the parking lot, what I said in the in the studio, but it's it's referred to as dispensed. The cannabis is dispensed, it's not sold. That was very important. And so there's there's basically two conclusions to come to here that about cannabis in Spain. And basically cultivation is allowed while possession is not. And you cannot transport cannabis. Consumption is allowed, but public but not in public places, right? There's a medical program which is changing as we speak. Peter, again, we'll talk about that later in another episode. Peter talked about the medical program, also what's online. However, the existing medical program is very difficult to navigate. And I think Aurora spoke a little bit about one of her clients. One of her clients was in in the medical program. Yeah. So I think we got one more quote from from Aurora.

Trevor: Well I and I'm gonna and I think it works well into Aurora's quote. With all this confusion, it sounds like it might be really easy to accidentally break the rules. So, you know, are the police ever involved in the clubs or the people around the clubs, or tourists trying to get to the club?

Kirk: Well let's hear Aurora's quote, what she told me, and then I'll tell you some other anecdotal stories I heard about Spain and tourists. Sounds good. But they but they don't they don't bother clubs like this.

Aurora: No no no. Sometimes I someone tell me at the reception that the police can come to control, but like just control if I have my TNE, if I'm legal in Spain. Not about the cannabis. Just like to control that they in the the club allow good people or people with adoptions. Like in this case. And the other thing, I don't know if you know more about this, but I know that the transport about the un the big quantity of cannabis in the club is still illegal.

Kirk: Okay.

Aurora: So it's legal here but I don't know how

Kirk: Well my understanding is that they're not allowed to sell it.

Rene: All right, that was the first part of a series of shows now about Kirk's adventures in Spain and Morocco. Next week we'll have some more interviews that Kirk had with people as we move into Madrid. Thanks for listening to Reefer Medness, the podcast. Make sure to follow us on Facebook and all the other socials, and we'll have lots more next week. Thanks for listening.