Sounds good, on paper...
This does not help the legalisation movement
in the least. It's just a
tourist trap of the
WORST kind.
I mean, does anybody see right going abroad to abuse children because "it is a different culture
over there and that makes it ok"?
If you want to fund what pretty much constitutes a criminal enterprise and
further hinder chances of legalisation in Spain by giving prohibitionists more arguments then YES, absolutely go right ahead!
They will argue (quite convincingly, sadly) that their city has become a haven for drug tourism, creates mafias, promotes use among children and young people, etc, etc.
They aren't like an Amsterdam coffe-shop guys!
...Why need
membership otherwise?
I'll explain:
Cannabis Social Clubs are
ALEGAL.
1. Drug consumption is
decriminalised in private.
Has been for over 30 years in Spain as a matter of fact.
Anything else (buying, selling, carrying, consuming in public, etc) is a punishable offence, depending on amount seized.
So, pretty much as illegal as it gets unfortunately.
2. Cannabis Social Clubs were created using the private consumption principle, for
local people to consume in a safe space and contribute towards a
communal purchase. They enjoy a Non-Profit Organisation status.
This means ALL the revenue from
anything (drinks included) MUST reverse in the benefit of the club and its members.
In practice you can retire up to about 50-100gr. per month of that communal purchase.
3. Membership is
BY REFERRAL ONLY and are charged a
monthly fee of about 8E, to support local activist organisations.
Medical/therapeutic patients are exempted of fees and only pay a fraction of the cost of their meds too. This is one of the MAIN reasons these Clubs were founded, with MEDICAL patients in mind.
That was the original idea; to provide the means for said members to have access to a source of clean, affordable meds.
One of the pioneering sentences that opened the way to all this CSC phenomenon (even though in Spain winning a case does not set a legal precedent) was precisely won by a Club of medical patients, as they were given back the 2Kg of cannabis seized and permitted to continue.
3. You must be a
local resident. Whether national or foreign. Precisely to avoid drug tourism.
So, in practice, they
still operate in a grey area:
Nobody apart criminals are willing to grow over 1Kg. Which is the limit stated by the law to charge anybody of "possession with intent".
This limits size of Clubs to about 40 people: you need a lot of independent growers to make it work, it just not mathematically viable to have hundreds of members!
IF you're doing it right...
In practice, most clubs grow to have hundreds if not thousands, of members in big cities.
Until they get raided... 
The problem was that some of those Clubs that tried to do things responsibly by notifying authorities of their plantations (for example) were raided and charged with a criminal offence for growing thousands of plants!
There were also people arrested for laundering 3 million Euros in Andorra. Talk about giving back to the community!
TL;DR
If you wanna feel like playing
activist for a day whilst lining some criminal's pockets it
should be good fun though.
Sorry if it all sounds like a bit of a rant
, but why should legalisation efforts be valid in some places more than others where they're just a tourist attraction?
I get we all wanna get high when when we travel yadda yadda, but nobody's supposed to give
me any weed just like that... Especially if its still illegal...
Treating it like a free-for-all for tourists doesn't help local people trying to get Cannabis legalised.
It also brings trouble to said tourists that may think they ended up in Amsterdam instead of 1000 Km. south?
I also find it is very disrespectful towards the people that struggle to run a decent CSC. Those people get raided by the Police because of social alarmism and have to pay instead of criminals, often with costly court proceedings and sometimes jail.
