Spanish town of Rasquera leases land for marijuana plantation

[Freakbrother]

Spanish town of Rasquera leases land for marijuana plantation

 

Town's mayor says scheme, which is legal, is chance to bring in money and create jobs

• Giles Tremlett in Madrid
  
• guardian.co.uk, Thursday 1 March 2012 11.53 GMT
  

A tiny Spanish country town believes it has found a way to make unemployment, debt and economic crisis disappear in a puff of smoke – by leasing out its land for marijuana plantations.

The town hall of Rasquera in Catalonia on Wednesday voted to sign a €1.3m (£1.1m) agreement with a cannabis association in nearby Barcelona to plant marijuana for its 5,000 members.

It will allow the association to plant on a seven-hectare stretch of town hall land – roughly the size of 10 football pitches. "This is a chance to bring in money and create jobs," explained mayor Bernat Pellisa of the Catalan Republican Left party, as older townsfolk worried that he was turning Rasquera into a drugs mecca.

Pellisa said he had sought legal advice that the scheme, part of a set of "anticrisis" measures passed at a packed town hall meeting, did not break Spain's ambiguous cannabis laws.

"The produce will only go to members of the association and it won't all be cannabis," he added. "There will be crop rotation with cereal and sugarbeet."

The Barcelona Personal Use Cannabis Association (ABCDA), part of a mushrooming movement of private marijuana clubs in Spain, will pay the town €650,000 a year for the right to grow its annual supply there.

"Growing for oneself is not illegal, but this is a delicate issue," explained lawyer Oriol Casals.

Pellisa said the deal would create up to 40 jobs and allow the town hall to pay off its €1.3m debt in two years.

"There are five or six other projects in the wings," explained Pellisa. They included supplying seeds to Spain's so-called grow shops, which are allowed to sell them to people wishing to grow their own plants.

A second cannabis club with 7,000 members was due to meet Pellisa for talks on Thursday.

An alternative clinic for people with cancer was also being studied.

The deal will turn Rasquera, where local produce traditionally includes olives, almonds and goats, into one of the biggest legal suppliers of cannabis in Europe.

Not everyone in town, which lies 90 miles (140km) south of Barcelona, likes the idea. "This makes us the laughing stock of Catalonia," said secondary schoolteacher Joan Farnós.

"It will lead our grandchildren to perdition," one elderly woman told journalists.

But others saw a chance to beat Spain's 23% unemployment rate and its fall back into recession. "I haven't smoked since I did my military service, but I'd go and work planting marijuana because I haven't had a job for two years," local farm labourer Mario Amorós told El País.

Pellisa said he had informed the regional government of Catalonia, which runs the local police, about the project. The government had told him it would consult lawyers.

"We demand our own sovereignty on this," he added.

Spain's cannabis clubs argue that if growing and possessing marijuana for personal consumption is legal, then there is nothing illegal about forming a club to that end.

"Cannabis use is an established and increasingly accepted reality in our society," explained Martin Barriuso, of the Basque cannabis federation. "Instead of turning our backs on this reality we think the reasonable thing to do is to find a way to regulate it, encouraging responsible use and making it difficult for adolescents to obtain."

"Our associations work on this basis … paying taxes, creating jobs and stopping people going to the black market," he added.

Rasquera's town hall has agreed to set up a committee to draw up protocols on "security and risk control", according to a draft of the contract with ABCDA.

 

 

From: http://www.guardian....uana-plantation

[The Hash Nibbler]

Lmao 1.3 million Euros......aaaahahahahaha, That town got ripped off...... they'll grow enuff to cover that in the first year with, 10 football fields worth of land. hehe

Geebus, be lovely to walk thru that hand rubbin Charas...........Viva la Cannabis! Peace. Nibbler.

[louise]

650,000 euros per annum is a lot of rent for 7 hectares of dirt.

[nici]

Australia is so far behind the times it's not funny anymore!

[Ford Fairlane]

Australia is so far behind the times it's not funny anymore!

You reckon we're behind the times now... Wait till Abott wins the next federal election. we'll be back in the middle ages and peple will be burned for practising science

[louise]

And no more condoms on supermarket shelves to tempt the young to stray from the path of purity.... the end truly is nigh!

[Freakbrother]

Cannabis-growing plan for Catalan town fails to reach vote threshold

 

Proposal by mayor of Rasquera to become centre of marijuana production gets only 56% backing; however, he does not resign

 

Giles Tremlett in Madrid

guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 11 April 2012 00.34 BST

To many people in the small town of Rasquera in the east of Spain, it seemed like the perfect remedy to the economic crisis: a massive legal cannabis plantation that would give a new high to the local economy.

But the plan to make Rasquera into a centre of marijuana production for southern Europe appears to have gone up in smoke after the locals showed lukewarm support in a referendum.

Mayor Bernat Pellisa had pledged to resign, in effect cancelling the project, if his bold plan were to win the support of fewer than three-quarters of voters in this Catalan town of 900 souls, previously known for its olives, almonds and goats.

Last night the result came: only 56% of voters backed his plan, after a bitter campaign in which opponents accused him of artificially stuffing the census with supporters.

But Bernat has declined to resign immediately, telling TV crews gathered in the town to see the result, that he would think again, since he had got majority backing - leaving the project in confusion.

The vote is nevertheless a blow to the Barcelona Private Consumption Cannabis Association, which had agreed to lease out municipal land to grow marijuana for its 5,000 members.

Bernat had said the plan would provide up to 40 jobs when unemployment in Spain stands at 24%. It would also bring up to €1.3m to the town in two years – allowing it to pay off its council debt.

Police, the central government in Madrid and the autonomous region authorities in Catalonia had been less enthusiastic about the town plan, saying it is illegal.

But Bernat had said that he had commissioned legal opinions which had argued that growing cannabis for private consumption, even if it was between thousands of people, was legal in Spanish law.

Numerous cannabis clubs have sprung up across the country in recent years, with courts accepting that small plantations providing marijuana for a limited number of people are not illegal.

But even members of Spain's cannabis lobby had said they thought Rasquera's plan was too big to be considered legal.

Edited April 11, 2012 by Freakbrother

[iTiC]

You reckon we're behind the times now... Wait till Abott wins the next federal election. we'll be back in the middle ages and peple will be burned for practising science

Abott cant get in, he's universally dispised. not for his pollicies or any of that bullshit. Its coz he too frequently pops up wearning nuthin but a set o budgie smugglers. I mean phark, you just cant unsee that!!!!!