Indopedia All Things Marijuana
On both sides of the street, shoppers stop to watch in amazement at the brazen display of law breaking during Madrid’s 22nd global Marijuana March on Saturday May 5th. Sitting cross-legged on the tarmac in the middle of Gran Via, Javi Puig, president of Galicia’s branch of the Federation of Cannabis Associations (ConFAC), is the first to pull out his papers and roll a joint.
Police vans block traffic at either end of the long boulevard. Dozens of marchers sit on the ground around Puig, and behind them a 1,000-strong crowd of cannabis activists, a motley crew of longhaired hippies and tattooed college kids dressed in black with mohawks or dreadlocks, who chant and hold signs calling for the end of marijuana prohibition.
Now in its 22nd year, Madrid’s global Marijuana March is a celebration of a parallel universe where cannabis is legal and cultivators can grow weed without risk of incurring problems with the law. The first March took place in 1996, and was organized by Fernando Aranaz Martin a.k.a. Lucky, founding…
