Ah, the War on Drugs. Good times. America used to export its absurd mania about cannabis across the world with a ferocity and lack of logic which kept many of us young'uns convinced that 'if this law is so obviously stupid, then what about...'. Post-Franco Spain meanwhile, together with Holland, was the great defender of personal freedom and 'live and let live'. Then there were the jolly trips to Morocco to smoke kif and hide some 'chocolate' in your suitcase.
But times change.
I was reading today in El Mundo that the town council of Oakland in California has voted 5-2 in favour ('favor') of growing a massive crop of cannabis for 'medical sales', with the two councillors against the motion concerned that the quality of the weed might be adversely affected. Then in the same newspaper, in Jaén, some chap has been caught with one plant on his terrace and he gets a year in clink for his troubles.
For your safety and protection, of course.
Meanwhile, the web-zine Qorreo thinks that Spain should legalise all drugs, because illegalising them hasn't made any difference - except to the mafias (and no one is more against legalisation than the mafias)...
Qorreo says: ...And so the government toes the line by peddling the myth that Spain has a problem with drugs, when, if one chooses to look at it another way, it actually has a problem caused by the prohibition of drugs.
See Penn and Teller's documentary. Bullshit: The War on Drugs.
Then of course, there's our boys at DrugFreeWorld.org...