a brief history of cannabis policies in spain - Journal of Drug Issues

GAMELLA, JIMÉNEZ RODRIGO
facilities were directed by professionals, ex-addicts, and religious organizations
(Polo & Zelaya, 1985). By 1986 an exhaustive survey found 81 therapeutic
communities in Spain offering about 2,900 placements for drug dependency. A
year later, the same author found that 23 new ones had opened (Comas, 1988, pp.
58-60).
The key element in the therapeutic community approach was to separate the
addict from the daily context of the barrio where injection and addiction had been
generated and supported. These institutions tended to be located in the countryside.
In fact, they were popularly referred to as “granjas” (“farms”). In many cases they
developed a sect-like quality, in agreement with a particular religious or cult
affiliation. For patients (or inmates), return to their home environment was often
traumatic, and relapse was common.
The therapeutic communities mandated total abstinence from illegal drugs and
often ardently rejected methadone dispensation as well. In fact, methadone
substitution programs almost disappeared in Spain between 1983 and 1991. These
programs were not popular then, even among professional therapists working with
heroin addicts, or among the most active, vocal, and organized of the parents of
heroin addicts. Still, in 1990 a survey found that 40% of respondents opposed the
dispensation of methadone, while 49% favored it (Martí, 1999). AIDS did not
become a priority in the treatment of heroin addicts until about 1989-1990.
In the 1990s therapeutic communities remained a treatment option, although
they were much controlled, regulated, and professionalized. Slowly, diverse types
of outpatient treatments were developed in primary health units.
INSTITUTIONALIZATION OF THE WAR ON DRUGS
By the late 1980s the National Plan on Drugs was being implemented at full
speed. It was first and foremost a plan to confront the heroin crisis. Dozens of
epidemiologists, psychiatrists, psychologists, and administrative personnel were
coordinating the “official response” to the heroin crisis. In the following years,
every regional and sizable municipal government developed its own “plan on drugs”
with its leading political appointees, coordinating committees, technicians, social
workers, and administrative support. A number of NGOs were developed throughout
the country to deal with the “problem of drugs,” most of them supported by public
funds. In the first five years of its implementation (between 1986 and 1991), the
National Plan on Drugs spent over $500 million, an amount funded both by the
Central Government and the Autonomous Communities (Delegación del Gobierno
para el Plan Nacional Sobre Drogas [DGPND], 1992, p. 33).
Thus, the institutional response to the heroin crisis was slow to develop. A
decade passed between the beginning of the “epidemic” and the rigorous monitoring
of its extent and its consequences. The immediate professional response was to
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