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Something magical has sprouted for four days in the middle of an orange grove. In a residence turned refuge, adjacent to the Albufera Natural Park (Valencia), more than fifteen women have come together towards multiple universes yet to be created.

Until now known as Red de Mujeres Antiprohibicionistas (REMA) has held its first face-to-face meeting with the collectives and organisations* that currently make it up in order to lay the cards of its present and its future on the table.

However, the past is also worth remembering. The birth of REMA, in 2016, came about as a result of a meeting of women linked to the cannabis sector: El Encuentro de Mujeres Cannábicas. Some of these women are the ones who have made it possible that, between periods of greater and lesser activity, the network has been welcoming new groups focused in one way or another on the drugs field, beyond the world of cannabis –for example, Sot a Terra, whose members have been presented for the first time at this meeting.

What we have done, meeting and colluding together, has also been forbidden to us at many times in history and in many places around the world. Those who have persecuted and penalised us have always known how much power emerges from the bonds and alliances that womxn create. Fortunately, we know this too.

Re-imagining a network of anti-prohibitionist womxn

The desire to build together has been the main motivation for this meeting. It has also been the desire to generate strategies of articulation and to question our ideological positioning in order to re-elaborate it, as well as to have a political and social impact in the drugs field from a feminist perspective.

The exchange of ideas, knowledge and experiences at this meeting has been nourished by an intergenerational perspective (we are women between the ages of 27 and 64). Moreover, we come from different places and different realities, but the enthusiasm to combine memory and new sensibilities has made possible the birth of initiatives that aim to shape a new REMA. We came to the conclusion that, from now on, our name will explicitly include two of the main axes of this network. We are REMA – Anti-prohibitionist Feminists.

We know that the perfect potion does not exist, but we are also aware of the urgency of a paradigm shift that guarantees the rights of people who use substances through decriminalisation and regulation based on social justice principles. In order to achieve this, it will be crucial to make visible and strengthen narratives that have been historically silenced in the framework of a cis-heteropatriarchal, racist, colonialist and ableist system. These narratives also advocate for the right to decide over our own bodies and the management of our pleasures.

Care and intersections

We have shared proposals, laughter, food, worries, dreams and moments of complicity under the light of the sun and the moon, getting to know and recognise each other. We made the word care acquire smells, flavours, textures and forms that some of us had never even experienced before.

On the other hand, we decided to rethink the intersection between those systems that oppress people who use drugs. We know that prohibitionism stems from the will to specifically criminalise non-white people, so our most urgent commitment is to review the homogeneity and the privileges of this network and, above all, to reach out to those partners who are not with us.

In the end, this meeting has been a breath of fresh air. It has also been a space-time in which to listen to each other without judgement in order to learn, from admiration, inspiration and empathy. 

It has not been easy to get this far and it will not be easy to face the challenges to come, especially because of the risk they imply for the established order. However, we are willing to be a trench, to continue to grow and to raise our voices against the established rules, just as those who preceded us did –in spite of everything.

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*Who are the members of REMA – Anti-prohibitionist Feminists?

Collectives and organisations:

• Sot a Terra: It was born as a collective and self-managed project and is currently constituted as a cultural feminist association. They seek to make visible the experiences of women inside and outside countercultural scene, as well as to transform the ‘rave’ reality in order to free it from sexism and other phobias. They define themselves as “Djs, music producers, drug users, dancers, collectives, artists, tattoo artists, designers and any woman who feel she is part of the scene in one way or another”. They have recently organised the 1st Congress ‘A tranversal view of nightlife with a gender perspective’ together with the Servei d’Informació I Dinamització (SEDI) of the Universitat de València.

• Muyeres y Cannabis: A collective of women who work in associations in the northwest of Spain (Castilla y León, Asturisa, Cantabria…) and who organise various meetings and events. They define themselves as anti-prohibitionist feminists and cannabis users and advocate the regulation of cannabis with a gender perspective.

• Mujeres Cannábicas: Women’s collective in the Spanish state, precursor of REMA, organiser of the Encuentro de Mujeres Cannábicas in 2016 and which participates in different events. It focuses on academic research with a gender perspective and on the fight against the objectification of women’s bodies in the cannabis field.

• XADUD (Xarxa de Dones que Usen Drogues): The Network of Women who Use Drugs is a meeting and exchange space built collectively and opens to all those womxn who use drugs. Founded on the premise “Nothing about us without us” in 2017 with the support of CATNPUD, this network aims to give visibility to the realities and needs of womxn who use drugs in order to reduce their isolation and the violence they experience, as well as to raise awareness in society and the community.

• Metzineres: It is an innovative and daring non-profit cooperative providing sheltered environments exclusively for womxn that focuses on human rights, gender mainstreaming, and which cover a full spectrum of harm reduction approaches. With both a holistic and individualized framework, Metzineres emphasizes the uniqueness of each womxn and each situation. Access into Metzineres is immediate, with widely flexible responses that take into consideration individual expectations, concerns, interests and needs. Supported by local community strategies, and the social and solidarity-based economy, the Metzineres model aims to be one that provides consistency, is reliable, pragmatic, cost effective, and one in which each womxn plays a central role.

Individuals who are part of the following organisations, dedicated in one way or another to the field of drugs:

• RdRcannabis: Risk reduction programme aimed at cannabis clubs or associations. It provides information and reflections on cannabis consumption through different resources such as leaflets, posters or training for the people who work in them. It is characterised by working jointly and transversally with the organisations themselves and the people who make them up. 

• ICEERS (International Center for Ethnobotanical Education, Research and Service): It is a non-profit organisation dedicated to transforming society's relationship with psychoactive plants, committed to engaging with some of the fundamental issues resulting from the globalization of ayahuasca, iboga and other ethnobotanicals. They provide information based on research and scientific knowledge, promote public policies based on evidence and human rights, and organise events such as the World Ayahuasca Conference and the Cannabmed Congress, both of which are references worldwide.

• Pla d'accions sobre drogues de Reus and Dona Arsu Tot: On the one hand, the ‘Pla d’accions sobre drogues de Reus’ was created in 2004 with the intention of integrating and formalising the strategies and interventions that had been carried out since 1984 in Reus in the drugs field, with the precise aim of adapting them and providing relevant responses to a changing reality, from the complexity and from an holistic interpretation of the phenomenon. On the other hand, ‘Dona Arsu Tot’ is the branch of ‘ARSU-Reus’ (a non-profit association formed by people who use or have used drugs and other sensitised to the phenomenon) which aims to be a specific meeting place for women who want to share experiences, to unload anxiety, the feeling of guilt, empower themselves and to get security in order to break with the processes of social stigmatisation.  

• Energy Control: Intervention programme based on risk reduction in the recreational drug use field by the Asociación Bienestar y Desarrollo (ABD). It was founded in Barcelona in 1997 as a pioneering project in Spain in the risk reduction field. Its mission is to be a rigorous, honest and taboo-free reference so that people who use drugs can manage the pleasures and risks associated with their consumption.

• CatFAC: A group of associations of cannabis users that has been working collectively since 2012 to achieve recognition and regulation of their activity in Catalonia. Through the regulation of cannabis, they seek a social improvement that prioritises the wellbeing and health of people who consume it. They also aim to empower themselves and defend the model that they have been building for so many years to fight against the illicit market, seeking to guarantee quality, safety and support in the management of pleasures.  

• ConFAC: The Confederación de Federaciones de Asociaciones Cannábicas (ConFAC) is a non-governmental, non-profit organisation that works in the cannabis field, advocating for the fair and effective regulation of the plant. For more than 20 years, the organisation has been defending the initiative of Cannabis Social Clubs (CSC) as an alternative access to cannabis for millions of users in Spain and in many other parts of the world.   

• OECC (Observatorio Europeo del Consumo y Cultivo de Cannabis): It is a laboratory of ideas and actions at the service of society by making more effective proposals to regulate cannabis. OECC defines itself as an inclusive space, based on evidence and constitutional rights, as well as the scientific method, risk prevention and harm reduction. The organisation also advocates for global regulation that includes development aid, as well as the North-South relationship and the gender perspective. It is also the first association dedicated to the study of cannabis in Europe to be registered in the transparency registers.

Text and images by Judit Vela