When I moved to Spain in 2002, I didn’t come for the easy attitude to cannabis, but it quickly became a reason to stay. I remember Friday afternoon in the port of Marbella, summer sunshine, rows of pristine white yachts rocking on the calm water under a blue sky, spacious bar terraces full of potted plants and wicker furniture with canvas canopies for shade, party people in shorts and flip-flops, tables full of drinks, and the sea breeze heavy with the scent of hash.
Shame & The Secret Handshake
This was where I first encountered the Spanish style of rolling in cupped hands, mixing the loose tobacco and hash in one concave palm, covering it with a skin, and pouring the mix into the other palm to roll it up. It was like a secret handshake out in the open.
There was nothing open about cannabis back in my native Ireland, where the most distinctive feature of the culture was stigma. Any connection to any drug labeled the user an addict and outlaw. We found dealers in dark corners and kept our use behind locked doors.
We were misfits, good at hiding, we had to be—this double life was all we knew. I worked “normal” jobs, in marketing, and lived for evenings and weekends when I could spark up. And wore my outsider status as a badge of honour to bury my shame, the kind that comes with anything you’re forced to hide.
It was from this place of judgment that I embraced the liberation I found in Spain. I thought I’d escape prejudice. I was wrong.
Moroccan Pollen & California Sober
Later, I decamped further down the Spanish coast to a port town, a misfit haven with counterculture vibes and close ties to Morocco. During these …
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Author: Tasha Kerry Smith / High Times
