The president and treasurer of the “El Tabaquito Terapéutico Cultural Association”, which was based on Tajaraste street in Arrecife, will be in the dock next week, with a request for 7 years in prison for a crime against public health and another of illicit association, for the sale of hashish and marijuana in the premises.
In its provisional qualification document, the Prosecutor's Office also asks that they be sentenced to pay two fines for a total value of 68,231 euros, as well as that “the dissolution of the association” be ordered, which had 430 members. The premises were searched in November 2018 and inside they found almost 9 kilos of hashish and marijuana in different formats.
The trial is scheduled for July 5 before the Second Section of the Provincial Court, but an agreement of conformity could have been reached. If that agreement is ratified before the Court, which would imply the confession of the accused, the sentences initially requested would be reduced and the hearing would not be held.
According to the Prosecutor's Office in its indictment, O.A.S.R. and L.C.M. founded the association in 2014, together with two other people who are not being prosecuted. In its statutes, they indicated among its purposes “the study and application of cannabis for therapeutic purposes, “avoiding the danger to the health of its users inherent in the illegal cannabis market, through its activities aimed at preventing the risks associated with its use” and “promoting social debate on the legal situation and that of its consumers, as well as asserting the constitutional rights of which they are holders and denouncing and putting a stop to the arbitrariness that the different administrations and public powers or any person may commit in their observation.”
However, the Public Prosecutor's Office considers that the only thing they intended was “to allow access to substances that cause damage to health to an indiscriminate plurality of people” in exchange for money. In this regard, he emphasizes that anyone “could join as an associate”, without “any legal condition”, and even access was allowed to minors, as long as they were over 14 years of age and had “the written and express consent of their legal representatives.”
The document indicates that the accused, O.A.S.R. and L.C.M. were “usually in charge of dispensing the substances” and “in exchange for a price they distributed both various varieties of marijuana and hashish.”
In addition, it points out that they had “various suppliers” of these drugs, “lacking any administrative authorization for the production and distribution of marijuana, and it is not recorded that a license had been requested from the Spanish Agency for Medicines and Health Products", which is the "body authorized to do so.”
“None of the association's rules contemplated that the consumption of cannabis should be shared among the associates inside or outside the premises; as well as it did not contemplate the way in which the associates could obtain cannabis, nor a maximum withdrawal limit,” the Prosecutor's Office adds.
The document also includes several specific sales operations, which were documented by police officers who watched the premises for several days between March and September 2018.
Finally, in October of that year, the establishment was entered and searched, where, as the Prosecutor's Office emphasizes, they found almost 9 kilos of hashish and marijuana in different formats (4,594 grams of marijuana, 3,568 grams of cannabis extract, 334 grams of cannabis resin oil and 108 grams of cannabis resin), as well as different material for its treatment. According to the expert assessment, the seized drug would have had a value in the illicit market of almost 30,000 euros.
