Public conduct has its own administrative rules
Article 36.16 of Organic Law 4/2015 classifies illicit drug use or possession in public places, roads, public establishments and collective transport as a serious administrative offence, even without trafficking intent. The provision therefore concerns both where conduct occurs and what it involves.
Article 36.18 separately addresses illicit planting or cultivation visible to the public when it does not constitute a criminal offence. These provisions are part of public-security law, rather than a general licence governing every private activity.
Criminal law addresses supply-related conduct
Article 368 of the Criminal Code covers cultivation, manufacture and trafficking, as well as acts promoting or facilitating illegal consumption and possession for those purposes. The purpose and circumstances of conduct matter. The fact that an activity occurs in a private building does not settle whether it facilitates illegal consumption by others.
The law does not supply one universal plant count that makes every home situation lawful. Nor does a nonprofit name resolve the criminal-law assessment of an organisation’s actual activities.
Association registration concerns organisation
Organic Law 1/2002 regulates how associations are constituted and governed. Statutes set out purposes, membership and decision-making; the general assembly has the principal governing role. Members have information and participation rights, and the association must keep its organisational and financial records.
Registration operates within that framework. It does not itself authorise cannabis retail. The premises also remain subject to applicable local activity requirements, which address a different issue from whether the association is correctly constituted.
Administrative proceedings include defined rights
Law 39/2015 gives interested parties access to their administrative file and copies of its documents, information about the responsible authority, and the ability to submit representations and supporting material. In sanction proceedings, the person must be informed of the alleged facts, possible infringements and sanctions, and the competent authority.
A notified decision must include its full text and information about available challenges, the body receiving them and the applicable time limit. Those particulars belong to the actual notice; different procedural stages should not be treated as a single universal appeal deadline.
Medical and food products follow separate pathways
Royal Decree 903/2025 and AEMPS’s 2026 monograph govern standardised cannabis preparations used in magistral medicines, with specialist and hospital-pharmacy roles. This is a clinical and pharmaceutical route, not an association retail permit.
For food, cannabinoid novel-food authorisation is a separate EU requirement. ACSA’s September 2026 guidance distinguishes scientific assessment from the Commission decision needed for marketing authorisation. Cannabis-related matters can therefore involve different competent institutions: an association register, an administrative sanctioning authority, a criminal court, food authorities or medicines regulators, depending on the activity involved.
Sources & further reading
General information, not individual legal or medical advice.