MOSQUITOES AND DINOSAURS:
STRATEGIES FOR CHANGE IN A
COUNTRY ON THE PATH TO ULTRACONSERVATISM, SPAIN
ABSTRACT
The wave of political conservatism and alignment
with the United States in which Spain is today immersed encompassed drug
policies a long time ago. The National Drug Plan substantiates Spain's adhesion
to the principles stipulated in U.N. conventions and its adoption of the
drug-free-world goal and support of the most repressive strategies.
At a practical level, however, the government is
having a difficult time sticking to a hard-line. During the past few years, what has been
happening in Spain hardly fits in with what is to be expected in a country
whose leaders wholeheartedly embrace the idea of zero tolerance towards illicit
drugs. On the one hand, risk and harm reduction programs are being widely
implemented: methadone, and shortly,
heroine-supply programs; needle exchange programs; hygienic-consumption rooms;
substance analysis; and other such initiatives. On the other hand, illicit
drugs have been progressively normalized at a cultural and social level,
particularly cannabis; there is a growing debate regarding legalization −which
has been greatly influenced by the emergence of thousands of cannabis and anti-
prohibitionist associations− plus several specialized journals which
circulate widely; and hundreds of shops dedicated to selling all sorts of the
paraphernalia related to drugs.
Nonetheless, what is most interesting about these
changes is that they have come about at a period when Spain is in full
retrocession; a decade in which the government has passed from socialism to conservativism and from there, to ultraconservativism. Although the few legislative changes passed are
geared at strengthening an already hard-line, what is apparent is that the
situation has improved noticeably. What's happening is Spain goes to show how
administrative decentralization (with regional governments very actively
defending normalization of all drugs), mass culture, new forms of activism,
Internet and new trends carry more weight than the will of political
institutions. That, together with a diffuse
but imaginative strategy −reflected in the metaphor "mosquitoes
attacking the dinosaurs"− which has used peculiar forms of
disobedience and imaginative campaigns to, slowly but surely, make a dent in
the prohibitionists wall. This is a lesson which might serve the movement for
new drug policies well for the future.