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Spannabis Magazine held its annual fair this weekend in the Fira de Cornella - with 118 exhibitors offering various hemp and cannabis products - everything from seeds to classic-styled clothing, including hemp bread mix, hemp facial masque, and De Verdamper BV a smoke-less vaporiser smoking apparatus.

Each day of the 3-day event, forums were held to discuss cultivation, political action and medical use and production. I attended the political action forum on Saturday, but clearly the Barcelona public were more interested in the Cannabis Championship Cup than they were in the politics of creating a world in which they can freely grow cannabis and hemp. There were about dozen people seated during Encod’s presentation by Joep Oomen while about 100 eager growers watched the award presentation.

I gave copies of my father’s booklet ‘The International War on Freedom’ to the organisers as well as some of the exhibitors. It’s important that his voice continue to be present in the international debate and the least I can do is try to get his thoughts and words into the hands and minds of activists working in Europe.

Encod’s philosophy is keeping with Dad’s beliefs:

FREEDOM TO FARM
For thousands of years,people around the
world have been growing cannabis,coca
leaves,opium and other plants in order to use
them as a medicine for body and mind,or for
other useful purposes.Today,at least 35 million
people in the European Union and more than
200 million worldwide continue to use some of
these plants.
Since 1961,however,following the dictates
of a UN Convention that is applied in almost
all countries of the world,these plants are
prohibited.People have been killed,tor tured,
imprisoned,stigmatised and ruined for growing,
trading or consuming them.
The consumption of drugs can cause
problems -especially among young people.
But the fact that drugs are prohibited has
disasterous consequences.It forces drug
users into lifestyles that can become harmful
to themselves and others too,and creates
health problems that could easily be avoided.
Drug prohibition surrenders the control over
the drugs market to organised crime.While
large amounts of public funds are being
spent in fighting a war on drugs,all evidence
proves this endeavour to be ineffective and
counterproductive.

ENCOD is a European plat form of citizens who
want an intelligent and ef fective approach to
drug problems.We believe that only a legal
regulation of the drugs market will reduce these
problems.Such a regulation will improve the
living standards of millions of people,while
signi ficantly diminishing one of the world ’s
major criminal income sources.
One of our goals is to modif y the 1961
Convention on drugs.We ask the UN to
establish the right of ever y adult citizen of the
world to grow and possess natural plants for
personal use and non-commercial purposes,
using all technical equipment that is available
for this.At the same time,individual countries
should be allowed to experiment with policies
that are not based on a prohibitionist regime.
The war on drugs must end.
Help us to declare that peace
should be our policy.
Support ENCOD.