Historically, you would be hard-pressed to find a country that has a larger disconnect between cannabis public policy and a nation’s operating industry than in Spain. The European country is home to one of the most thriving cannabis communities and industries on the planet, but a vast majority of that industry is unregulated.

Hundreds of private cannabis clubs operate in many parts of Spain in what is often described as a ‘grey area’ of the country’s law. Judicial case law in Spain affords people the right to consume cannabis in private settings.

According to the European Union Drugs Agency’s (EUDA) 2025 report, 43.7% of adults in Spain report having consumed cannabis at least once in their lifetime, placing Spain only behind France (50.4%) for reported lifetime use. An estimated 12.6% of adults in Spain report having consumed cannabis within the last year, and 10.5% report having consumed cannabis within the last month, according to the EUDA.

Medical cannabis is legal in Spain; however, industry regulations are mainly focused on exports, and efforts to adopt domestic medical cannabis industry regulations have languished. Spain’s Council of Ministers announced this week that a Royal Decree regulating the medicinal use of cannabis in standardized preparations was approved.

“The standard responds to the need to offer a therapeutic alternative in cases where conventional treatments are ineffective, especially in patients with chronic, refractory pain, severe epilepsy, or spasticity due to multiple sclerosis.” Spain’s Ministry of Health stated in a news release (translated from Spanish to English). “Magistral formulas with standardized cannabis preparations may only be prescribed by specialist physicians and must be prepared and dispensed exclusively in hospital pharmacy services under individualized clinical supervision.”

“Standardized preparations must be registered with the Spanish Agency for Medicines and Medical Devices (AEMPS), guaranteeing their quality, safety, and proper dosage.” the Ministry also wrote. “The decree also creates a public registry, managed by the AEMPS (Spanish Agency for the Promotion of Health), in which all standardized cannabis preparations used to create master formulas must be registered. These products must have a defined composition of THC and/or CBD, comply with strict manufacturing, traceability, and quality requirements, and are subject to additional inspection when they contain more than 0.2% THC.”

The announcement of approval of the Royal Decree is welcomed, but needs to serve as a step toward wider domestic medical cannabis regulation, versus being a final public policy destination. Private cannabis clubs currently serve as the foundation of Spain’s safe access to medical cannabis, and while that is helpful to the nation’s suffering patients, patients and club operators alike deserve to operate in a landscape that is based on a greater level of certainty.