(ANSAmed) - MADRID - Last night, the Town Council of Rasquera (Tarragona), in Catalonia, passed a provision regarding concession of the municipality's lands to the Barcelona Association of Marijuana Consumers (ABCDA), which will plant marijuana in exchange of employment of approximately 40 people and EUR 1.336 mln in two years to cover the Municipality's funds deficit. According to what El Mundo reports today, during the crowded town council meeting (Rasquerra counts approximately 900 inhabitants), the 4 councillors of the governing group Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya voted in favour of the provision, while the three Convergencia i Union councillors, on the opposition, voted against it: the provision was therefore passed. The approved Meeting Agenda included a Municipal Action Plan for 2012, the creation of the Rasquera Local Public Enterprise for Research on Vegetable Varieties of Cannabis (Rrica) and the agreement between the Municipality and the Barcelona Association of Marijuana Consumers (ABCDA). The mayor, Bernat Pellida, has announced that an assembly with the participation of scientists, lawyers and doctors will be summoned next week. These experts will explain the project to the town's inhabitants and the "legal and technical reports" endorsing the initiative.Spain: Municipality relies on cannabis to get out of crisis
Rasquera says yes to plantation to settle debts
The project had been presented by ABCDA during the last months.
ABCDA's 5,000 members are consumers of "self-produced cannabis for recreational and treatment purposes", as they define themselves on their web-page. The leader of the CIU's Council's group Bernat Farnos called for the summoning of a "binding referendum" about the initiative, which he defined as "innovative, but on the border-line between licit and illicit activities" and not endorsed by legal reports. Cannabis cultivation in Rasquera, a town inhabited mostly by stock-breeders and oil producers should, theoretically speaking, allow the municipality to cover the Municipality's EUR 1.3 mln deficit, but the project raised heated controversies. "It is not totally illegal, but it is an initiative on the border line between licit and illicit activities, because it is oriented to individual consumers", the Chairman of the Drug Addiction Committee of the Barcelona Lawyers' Professional Association Francisco Vlazquez, declared to the media. By principle, cannabis cultivation infringes article 368 of the penal code, which forbids cultivation, processing and trafficking of drugs.
However, according to some legal experts, the article does not completely ban individual consumption. The Mayor Pellida stressed that cultivation and sale of marijuana will be carried out for therapy purposes or as a palliative for people affected from cancer. For this reason the mayor organized another meeting with another association of cannabis consumers, AIRAM, counting 7,000 members, also interested in the project. In Spain, there are approximately 150 clubs of cannabis smokers for individual consumption and some regional governments, such as the Basque Country Government, have already announced they are intentioned to regulate "responsible use" by specific legal provisions.
According to the Mayor of Rasquera, the initiative is aimed at "put an end to illegal trafficking" and, at the same time, at filling the Municipality's coffers and creating employment opportunities.
Monday, 5 March 2012
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