After decades of struggle, the pro-cannabis groups in Spain have almost won the battle. The current set of laws for weed there are far more relaxed than most countries. They control consumption of cannabis in both public and private spaces. However, you could still end up in trouble for a number of reasons if you don’t read between the fine lines. Read on to learn more about the things you need to know before you head to Barcelona to smoke on the right side of the law – for medical or recreational reasons.

If you are wondering whether cannabis is actually legal in Barcelona or not, it’s essential to take note of the following things before you smoke any weed there.

1. You Can ONLY Use Cannabis in a Private Setting

The Spanish Law doesn’t allow the use of cannabis in public spaces. This means you cannot possess, grow, or consume weed in a public setting. Not just that, the distribution, transportation and even selling of weed is a legal offense across Spain. In fact, if police officials catch you buying or smoking weed in public, your stash will be confiscated and you will be issued a fine in most cases.

So, if you are wondering if weed is legal in Barcelona – well, for the most part – yes! Smoking weed is legal in private spaces, like in the setting of a cannabis clubs (more on this later).

READ: 8 Little Known Benefits of Cannabis

2. Spanish Citizens Can Legally Grow Cannabis

The Spanish law allows its national citizens to do whatever they want in private (Nearly). This includes growing cannabis plants and consuming weed in the private setting of their homes. So, it’s a great idea to head to your friend’s who lives in Spain!

Having said this, there are some exceptions you need to keep in mind. The law does not protect you if your cannabis plants are in the balcony and are clearly visible from the roadway. In this scenario, the police can seize your plants.

READ: 15+ Recipes for Potent Weed Edibles

3. You Can Freely Consume Cannabis in the Local Social Clubs

Since the Spanish constitution effectively grants to its citizens the right to association, people with shared interests can form organized groups there. Cannabis clubs are the equivalent social space for organized groups of weed lovers and MMJ patients alike. This degree of freedom allows cannabis users in Barcelona to have a chance to smoke cannabis in a perfectly safe and private environment.

People with mutual interests can freely grow, share and consume weed together while making sure they are adhering to the law. Barcelona Cannabis clubs (sometimes refereed to as Coffee Shops) operate within the rigid confines of law by maintaining a limited membership, which always ensures their cannabis products remain within a limited network of registered members and never reaches the public.

However, violating any of the laws mentioned before could lead to heavy fines, criminal charges and even possible jail terms. So, for this reason, you should try to consume responsibly when you are in Barcelona and respect the local laws.

READ: Check Out San Francisco’s Cannabis Lounges

4. Joining a Cannabis Club in Barcelona Isn’t a Piece of Cake

Cannabis clubs in Barcelona are open to anyone who meets their joining criteria. This includes having a valid photo ID, attaining the minimum age limit for legal consumption of marijuana (usually 18 years, in some cases 21 years), and paying an annual membership fee.

In addition to this, some of these private clubs will also require you to have a referral or endorsement from an existing member of their club before they can grant you a membership. But if you are a tourist, it’s quite unlikely that you can meet the membership eligibility criteria for joining Barcelona’s exclusive cannabis clubs, as it’s hard to get an invitation when you’re only in the area for 3-5 days!

5. Never “Buy” Cannabis in Barcelona

When you join a cannabis club in Barcelona as a member, you get a share of the marijuana that’s grown by the club, which belongs to all of its members (and that includes you). By paying the club its annual membership fee, you essential pay for the functions of the club which includes your share of whatever amount it costs them to grow the marijuana for their members. This means you are not “buying” weed in the literal sense when you are a member of a cannabis club.

It’s generally considered rude (and illegal) to talk about “buying weed” anywhere in Spain, not only in Barcelona. Not just that, it’s illegal to buy cannabis from local street dealers. If you are caught breaking the law, you will have to face the consequences. Simple as that! So, keep this in mind before you approach a stranger and ask them about directions for scoring some weed in Barcelona.

Conclusion

There is an active cannabis scene in Barcelona and ways to legally consume. if you’re visiting the area, network with individuals in the local cannabis community before your trip to help ensure safe and legal travel. Most importantly, follow all local laws and enjoy the beautiful Spanish cannabis culture.

READ: 50+ Cannabis Related Gifts for under $20

Short Bio:

Perrieve, Founder of Heavenly Tours.

At CannabisClubTour.com, we are deeply passionate about the cannabis industry, particularly in Barcelona. We strongly believe that everyone over the legal age should get easy access to cannabis in Barcelona, regardless of whether they want it for medical or recreational reasons. Visit https://cannabisclubtour.com for more information on our simple DIY tour access to 5 of the best Cannabis Clubs in Barcelona.Trending Now

What is a Cannabis Family Vacation?

If you had told me a few years ago that I would need to plan a cannabis family vacation, I’d think you were bonkers. But now, as a medical marijuana patient, all our family vacations have to be planned around accessing cannabis, hence this crazy new search term: cannabis family vacation.

First, let’s be clear about what a cannabis family vacation is NOT. A cannabis family vacation is not a stoned, stupid, or irresponsible party time.

A cannabis family vacation simply means an ordinary family vacation that includes access to cannabis so that medical marijuana patients can be accommodated.

The thing is, cannabis isn’t available in most places and medical marijuana patients are not allowed to travel with their medicine.

Fortunately, there are a variety of great places that accommodate cannabis tourism. Medical marijuana patients can plan a cannabis trip to Colorado, Vermont, Washington, Hawaii, Oregon, Washington, DC., Jamaica, Uraguay, Canada, and more.

Here’s a long post about our Cannabis Family Vacation to San Francisco & Santa Cruz, CA–the weed related things, and the ordinary.

If you’re visiting San Francisco, be sure to check out my Directory of Cannabis Lounges.

Cannabis Friendly Hotels in California?

Do you know an officially cannabis-friendly hotel? If so, please tell me, because I have not found a truly cannabis-friendly hotel anywhere.

Most hotels have strict no smoking policies (and I expect that includes vaping). NOTE: I would never try to smoke in a hotel, but I may have vaped in hotel bathrooms using this Smoke Buddy Personal Carbon Filter.

Knowing most hotels are not cannabis-friendly, I carefully planned and booked our accommodations MONTHS beforehand. I found an Airbnb which allowed me easy access to a place I could vape cannabis. Unfortunately, Airbnb broke my heart and ripped apart my faith when TWO WEEKS before our trip (which was booked months in advance) Airbnb CANCELED my July 4th week reservation in San Francisco.

Forced to rebook last minute, there were no reasonably priced Airbnbs available that could accommodate us during the holiday. Similar places were going for quadruple the price of what I booked. Sadly, Airbnb offered shoddy customer service and a measly $200 credit (boo Airbnb, that wouldn’t even cover the cleaning fees).

We ended up being forced into an over-budget hotel and only spent half our trip in San Francisco. For the rest, we headed south to Santa Cruz which was honestly an absolute delight!! (And I’ll never rely on Airbnb again.)

Getting Marijuana in San Francisco

Getting weed is easy for adults in CA thanks to glorious recreational marijuana laws!

Unfortunately, it’s waaaay harder for single parents to get cannabis. Poor planning on my part! So be warned!

For the first two days in San Francisco, it was just my son (age 11) and I. My daughter (age 21) joined us later.

I counted on having cannabis delivered because in CA, minors are not allowed in dispensaries. What I didn’t realize is that many places only deliver to medical marijuana patients.

Thank heaven, for NuggMD. If you need a medical marijuana card in NY or CA, I highly recommend this telehealth service! I love them so much, I’ve partnered with them to promote their service because it really saved me when I desperately needed them.

If you need a CA or NY medical marijuana card, check them out. They are fast, easy, & 100% online.

GetNugg also offers cannabis delivery which varies from dispensary to dispensary; some still only deliver to medical marijuana patients. Whereas, any adult 21 & over may purchase cannabis in the dispensary.

Unfortunately, it took hours for me to figure all of this out and I went too long without medicine. Next time I travel, I’m considering bringing opiates and valium as a backup. I haven’t needed them in over two years, since I became a medical marijuana patient, but not having access to any medication was tough. (This is a such a stupid decision patients have to make. #legalize)

Finally, at 11 pm after waiting nearly 18 hours of my muscle spasms seizing in full swing– I finally had a bag full of meds.

California Cannabis Products I Love

Lemon Tree Life Resin

These Plus gummies were my favorite!! They’re all natural, and each only contains 5 mgs of THC which makes them ideal for microdosing.

Live Resin – Strawberry Mamba

Om Edibles

Everything Kiva is amazing.

Kanha Treats by Sunderstrom

Platinum OG

1:1 Gummies by District Edibles

Family Volunteering in San Francisco

While we were in San Fransisco, we spent the day volunteering at Glide. Glide is a remarkable meal service providing food and compassion to those in need.

My son said to me, “Mom, I’m glad we went, but it seems like an odd time. Why did we volunteer on vacation?”

I explained how important it was to give back to the community we were enjoying.

And honestly, volunteering at Glide was one of the highlights of our trip. We served nearly 700 meals in less than two hours and met some amazing humans who will leave a lasting impact on our lives.

Before our trip, I didn’t realize how large the homeless population is in San Francisco. I spend a lot of time in New York City and we have a significant amount of people who are homeless…but San Francisco it’s far more tragic. I’ve read about it. But I really didn’t realize until I saw myself.

Family Things to Do in San Francisco

If you only have a day or two to see San Francisco, a Big Bus tour is an ideal way to do it! We did the two-day tour and the night tour and we really enjoyed it.

On the Big Bus, you can hop on and off at all the major tourist attractions. There’s also a recorded or live tour guide depending on the tour.

Walk up and down Crooked Street

Ride a Cable Car.

I loved the Full House House, my son watches Fuller House with me and he loved it too. My daughter hasn’t seen either show and had no idea why we were so excited about a random house.

The Big Bus offers multiple views of The Golden Gate Bridge

And the chance to drive over the bridge.

The night tour offers stunning sunset views!

After a few days in San Francisco, we headed down to Santa Cruz.

Family Things to do in Santa Cruz

The Coastal Redwoods were my favorite part of our trip. I could sit among those magnificent trees for forever.

I loved Henry Cowell State Park. We went INSIDE a giant Redwood.

We had the best time at Natural Bridges State Park.

Natural Bridges State Park has the most amazing tide pools. We could have spent hours exploring them.

Tide Pools at Natural Bridges State Park in Santa Cruz.

We saw humpback whales on the Monterey Bay with Sanctuary Cruises.

And otters, and seals, and pelicans. 

My son’s highlight of the trip was mountain biking with Santa Cruz Bike Tours. I have not been on a bike for over 4 years since before my neck injury. The nerve damage in my neck makes it painful to ride & impossible to navigate a bike, but my son LOVES mountain biking. Fortunately, I found Marty at Santa Cruz Bike Tours.

Marty took extra care to choose a comfortable ride for me, and took us on a beautiful tour of the Redwoods that offered remarkably gentle spots for me to ride with no navigating, and also offered my son mountain biking trails to play on. Let me tell you—my kids were SO proud of me. They had little faith that I could hang! …ok honestly, I didn’t have much faith either. And it wasn’t easy. I walked that bike quite a few times, and I went downhill like a snail, and it did hurt quite a bit, but some experiences are worth the elevated pain levels. My kids loved it, it was my son’s favorite CA moment, and it was a remarkably joyful experience. I’m so grateful for CA’s cannabis laws because high-quality medicine is the only reason I was able to do this.

Visit Santa Cruz Boardwalk.

See the Pacific Ocean.

 Trending Now

San Francisco’s cannabis lounges are a highlight if you’re a cannabis tourist. All medical marijuana patients are cannabis tourists. Cannabis tourism can mean a variety of things. It can refer to a cannabis-centric grown-up trip to the Cannabis Cup, or it can refer to a simple, family vacation that includes access to medical marijuana. If a medical marijuana patient can’t obtain their medicine at a location, they often can’t visit.

Sometimes, even when medical marijuana patients are able to obtain meds, they still can’t find a safe place to smoke or vape cannabis while traveling.

I recently took a cannabis family vacation to California. Thanks to California’s glorious recreational laws, ample meds are available, however, public smoking is not allowed. Most hotels are non-smoking locations. Fortunately, in the city of San Francisco, there are many places where you can legally smoke or vape cannabis, in the form of cannabis lounges.

I recently reviewed over a half dozen of San Francisco’s cannabis lounges. Here are all the details and some of my faves!

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About Cannabis Lounges in San Francisco

Vaping is allowed in all cannabis lounges. Only some cannabis lounges allow smoking. Cannabis lounges must obtain a permit for onsite consumption. An open flame permit must also be obtained to allow smoking. There are regulations governing the filtration systems installed in San Francisco’s cannabis lounges.

All of the cannabis lounges listed are also dispensaries. Some of them require a purchase in order to use the lounge Others allow you to bring your own weed to smoke or vape as you please.

Some lounges require you to sign a membership agreement and/or release.

Many lounges offer dab rigs, bongs, rolling trays, or volcano vaporizers to help you consume cannabis.

Cannabis Lounge Directory – San Francisco, CA

Urban Pharm

122 10th St, San Francisco, CA 94103

Impression: My favorite. I could live here.

Website: Urban Pharm

Steampunk & super cozy. My first trip to Urban Pharm was so enjoyable I returned for a second and third…yes, even though I was visiting nearly every other cannabis lounge in San Francisco. I loved Urban Pharm that much. Maybe because it’s the spot of my first real dab, from Teagen at Urban Pham’s dab bar.

I’d vaped concentrates before but I’d never dabbed from a rig. Teagen offered tons of gentle guidance and didn’t abandon me when it took eons to finish my dab.

Urban Pharm happened to be holding “comedy night” when I stopped by. Catch it if you can; it’s highly entertaining.

Unfortunately, due to new regulations starting July 1, 2018, cannabis lounges are no longer able to sell individual dabs, however, you can purchase a concentrate from the dispensary and use it at the dab bar.

sparc – SF

1256 Mission Street, San Francisco, CA

Impression: Zen – Minimalist, Sleek – this could be my happy place. 

Website: sparc

My second favorite place was Sparc Patient Collective. Their Mission Street cannabis lounge is located in a wide airy space with high ceilings and tons of gorgeous natural light. It smells amazing.

Sparc quickly became one of my favorite lounges with its zen-esque vibe. I purchased a gram of Cherry A- 47 and I was fortunate enough to have Jeremy teach me how to use the volcano vaporizer. Jeremy was a joy, if you need a volcano tutorial, I highly recommend a visit. If my trip was a grownup trip, I could have spent hours in the sparc cannabis lounge working on my laptop and happily vaping.

Clients can use their own vapes or borrow a kit to use Sparc’s volcanoes. Leave your ID at the front desk for a kit. Sparc also features “smoking hour”. On Friday to Sunday, you can smoke cannabis after 4:20 pm in Sparc’s Mission Street cannabis lounge.

There’s no purchase required but you do have to agree to house rules and sign the membership agreement. Only the Mission Street sparc has a cannabis lounge.

Barbary Coast

Impression: Luxurious Sports Bar Vibe

952 Mission St, San Francisco, CA 94103

Barbary Coast is rich and luxurious filled with leather and deep wood, it’s a gorgeous space with a sports bar sorta feel. Barbary Coast offers cozy booths that could make a nice cannabis date spot. Go here if you’re looking for a secluded nook to tuck away and smoke or vape.

I had a lovely visit with Nate who was manning the dab bar. Again, dabs are not sold at the dab bar, but you can purchase concentrates and carry them over to the rigs to use. Be prepared to sign a waiver. The budtender explained, “you have to sign a release that says if you noodle it’s not our fault.”

Harvest on Geary

4811 Geary Blvd, San Francisco, CA 94118

Impression: Ultra Lux – Leather and Chandeliers

Harvest on Geary offers an ultra-luxurious industrial chick cannabis lounge. The lounge features free wifi, outlets, and water. It’s an elegant space where clients can smoke or vape cannabis.

There’s no time limit or purchase required but you must become a member which may involve a $20.00 membership fee (but that also get’s you a 5% discount on purchases.)

Harvest does not have vapes available, but they do have rigs to loan out. Only the Geary location of Harvest has a cannabis lounge.

The Bloom Room – Vapor Only

471 Jessie St, San Francisco, CA 94103

Impression: Your friendly local lounge spot.

The Bloom Room was the most cheerful dispensary I’ve visited and it was filled with friendly locals. The decor is a bright and cheerful. Surf music plays and a dog water bowl sets by the front door. A big black lab enters and who’s clearly familiar. He heads straight to the bowl for a giant gulp. The Bloom Room is small, but it’s a great spot place to stop by for a quick vape.

Melissa checked me in and explained the house rules. No purchase is required to use the lounge at The Bloom Room, Clients can use a personal vape or use The Bloom Room’s volcano vaporizers. Melissa explained this model, “gives people a safe space” to use cannabis. The bloom room offers a TV and complimentary water. Clients have a 30-minute time limit.

Re-Leaf Herbal Cooperative

Impression: A quick stop. 

Re-Leaf Herbal Cooperative offers a small smoking lounge and vape lounge for customers only. No tobacco allowed and there are outlets available.  They used to have a dab bar but new regulations don’t allow it. If you want to dab in their lounge, you can, but you’ll have to bring your own rig or vape.

The Green Door

843 Howard St, San Francisco, CA 94103

Impression: Could be a fun place to smoke (when it’s open). 

The Green Door Lounge was closed during my cannabis trip. During my tour of San Francisco, I heard several locals rave about The Green Door Lounge. I stopped by and chatted with the Director of Operations, A.G. Melendez, who explained due to the new regulations they had to apply for a new permit.

There’s no ETA on the opening but when it does open, the lounge features a TV, pool table, and Pub Tables. The Green Door hosts local organization meetings and holds events.Trending Now