A small
Spanish village south of Barcelona is fighting the current financial crisis and
record unemployment by renting out a huge field for growing cannabis. But the
country's justice minister is not amused.
Spanish
Justice Minister Alberto Ruiz-Gallardon on Wednesday questioned the viability
of cultivating marijuana in the Spanish village of Rasquera 140 kilometers (90
miles) south of Barcelona.
In a local
referendum, 56 percent of voters had backed a plan to rent out 2,500 square
meters (seven hectares) of land to the ABCDA Marijuana Smokers' Association.
The organization said it would use the land to grow cannabis for what would be
legal therapeutic and recreational purposes.
"Authorizing
a marijuana plantation would have more negative than positive consequences in
the long term," Ruiz-Gallardon said in a statement on Wednesday.
Spanish law
is ambiguous on the production of marijuana, which is considered a soft drug.
Private consumption of cannabis is not forbidden in the country, but it's
illegal to sell it.
Drugs to
fight debt?
The village
of Rasquera views its plan as a resourceful way to pay some of its 1.3 million
euros ($1.7 million) of debt and reduce soaring unemployment by creating up to
40 new jobs.
"The
village, like so many others, has many difficulties, a big crisis, a lot of
inhabitants without work," Rasquera's Economic Counselor Josep Maria
Insausti said in a statement. "Now we are being asked to pay off our debts
impossibly quickly."
The ABCDA
will reportedly pay the village 650,000 euros per year for the right to grow
its annual supply there. But Spanish society remains divided down the middle
over the planned plantation. While many see in it a tool for more economic
prosperity in the village, others fear it could bring drug-related crime into
Rasquera.
hg/bk (AFP,
dpa)
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