The number of associations throughout Spain varies greatly depending on the autonomous community or municipality.
Perhaps you are a member of one or more cannabis associations or know someone who belongs to one, especially if you live in the main cities. Or, on the contrary, you are not a member of any of them, either because you prefer to grow at home or because there are no associations in your area. But... Have you ever wondered how many associations there are in Spain and why there are more in some places than in others?
We have done some research on the current situation of associations throughout Spain and we have indeed found big differences depending on the Autonomous Community, Province or even City Councils. While there are autonomous communities that seem to be more permissive with the opening and operation of these associations and have more of them, such as Catalonia, Canary Islands or Cantabria, other autonomous communities such as Castilla y León, Castilla y La Mancha, La Rioja or Madrid seem to be more restrictive when it comes to granting openings and allowing them to operate.
In any case, even within the autonomous communities where they are more permissive and where there are more associations, there are cases of city and provincial councils that are more reluctant to allow this type of private premises to proliferate. In Catalonia, for example, where there are around 550 legally constituted associations, in Barcelona alone there are around 300, while in places such as Salou or Lérida they have put many obstacles in the way of opening and have even closed down the vast majority of those that already existed. In any case, in the region of Catalonia they are generally in good health, as there are many municipalities where there are several associations in the same area. Cities such as Badalona, L'Hospitalet, Mataró or Sabadell have more than a dozen associations each, while many other towns such as Terrasa, El Masnou, Blanes, Vilanova or Vic have between 3 and 6 associations respectively. It is also more common in Catalonia for cannabis users to be members of several associations, either because of the proximity to their usual residence, place of work or because their partner or friend lives in another town where he or she is already a member of one of these associations.
Other areas where cannabis associations have proliferated a lot are the Balearic Islands, Andalusia, the Canary Islands, and some areas of the Basque Country and the Valencian Community.
Andalusia has also become a region with a large number of these premises. In Sevilla we have counted some 50 cannabis user associations while there are 3 to 6 in each of the other provincial capitals. If we leave the big cities we can also find associations along the coast in different locations such as Marbella, Fuengirola, Torremolinos, Ayamonte or Tarifa.
The Canary Islands have more than 300 registered associations. They are very unevenly distributed throughout their territory, most of them located in the coastal areas. While cities such as Las Palmas or Corralejo have more than a dozen in each city alone, in areas such as Lanzarote or Arona in Tenerife, each village may have only one association, so they are more spread over a wide area. Here the users tend to be more regular users of a single association.
Although there are more than 100 registered associations in the Madrid region, there will be no more than 70 in operation. In Madrid, police persecution of users and premises has always been very continuous, and local administrations are very reluctant to support the development of associations without a legislative framework that regulates them from the government. In any case, the dozens of operating premises continue to offer their members spaces and facilities suitable for cannabis consumption, as well as different cultural activities, social collaboration initiatives and information on the activity of their association and the organisations and events in which they collaborate.
Oviedo and Gijón (Asturias), Santander (Cantabria) and Irún (Basque Country) are other cities with the highest number of cannabis associations. In the two Asturian capitals we can find a dozen in each of them, while in the Cantabrian and Basque capitals there are between 20 and 30 respectively.
Although the current number of registered and active associations throughout Spain is not known with certainty, we estimate that it is close to 2000, but with many inequalities as we have noted in the article.
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