Barcelona has a new tourist attraction that some locals wish would disappear: a burgeoning number of “cannabis clubs,” where people can legally buy and smoke pot.
Although selling marijuana is against the law in Spain, some regions allow local residents to set up nonprofit clubs whose members grow and share it for personal use. As recently as 2011, only a few dozen such groups were in the Catalonia region, which includes Barcelona. But since then, the number has risen to about 400, with some clubs opening cafés, on Las Ramblas and other popular tourist streets, that offer menu items such as “New York Haze” and “Big Bud.” The clubs have drawn comparisons with Amsterdam’s pot-selling “coffee shops,” amid some predictions that Barcelona could even become the new pot capital of Europe.
