Thinking about buying some cannabis seeds? Here's everything you need to know about their legality in Spain.
Legality of Marijuana Seeds in Spain (May 2025)
Spain, 2025. Cannabis is a substance that is present in the daily life of many Spaniards and can be smelled in the streets and squares of our neighborhoods with relative normality. Numerous tourists arrive in Spain in search of sun, cheap beer and... marijuana. Many of them land with the full conviction that weed in Spain is legal, but unfortunately they could not be more wrong. Marijuana in Spain, despite the social normalization of its use, is still a controlled substance. You cannot carry it or consume it in public places.
What about cultivation? That is more relative. To sum it up a little, in our country you can cultivate both cannabis in your private sphere, as you can prove to a judge that it is for your own consumption, in case you have the bad luck to suffer an intervention. In addition, now, and after the changes made in the Law of Citizen Security in October 2024, you will be able to grow your plants in places that are not accessible, while until now, you could only do it in places that were not visible. This change of nuance is important, because before you could not grow in your balcony, if it was visible from the public road, but now you can do it as long as your terrace or balcony is not accessible from the street.
But let's focus a little bit on what, from the World BreedersWe are most interested in: seeds and their legality. In the case of marijuana, it is clear to us that the egg always comes before the chicken, that in order to have a beautiful bush, we need a healthy and vigorous seed. But can we buy it safely and legally, and grow it?
Is it legal to buy cannabis seeds in Spain?
The answer is clear and emphatic: YesBuying cannabis seeds is legal in Spain. Even so, the first thing we have to be clear about is that this sector lacks any kind of specific regulation, so while, you as a buyer you can have absolute peace of mind that you will have no problems when buying your seedsIn some cases, the company that provides them to you may face interventions or visits from the police and have to provide explanations.
Cannabis seeds as such do not appear on any drug control list and can therefore be bought and sold. Seeds do not contain THC or other controlled cannabinoids, so they can be bought and sold. are not included in the lists of illegal drugs The UN Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs of 1961, which was also ratified by the Supreme Court in a ruling in 2003.
You can buy your marijuana seeds with absolute peace of mind
In practice, this means that you can buy seeds in Spain, and even import them from other European countries.without incurring a crime. Of course, sellers always make it clear that the sale is made under the condition that customers use the seeds exclusively for the purposes provided for by law. Thus, many companies and banks market them as:
Collectibles.
Dietary supplements (rich in proteins and amino acids).
Food for birds or fish.
In spite of everything, in some police interventions that have taken place in recent years in some seed banks, there have been attempts to make it appear that the fact of selling seeds meant something like becoming a necessary collaborator in a drug trafficking crime. This point, in spite of everything, is nothing more than another repressive and coercive strategy aimed at intimidating and causing fear among seed buyers and sellers, but in no case has it been backed up by any firm sentence. One of the reasons why the State security forces and bodies started this crusade against some banks is based on the idea that, in order to produce the seeds marketed by the bank, someone had to cultivate cannabis plants, and this cultivation, always under their assumptions, has been created in a presumably illegal way.
This is a debate that is not new in our country. In this regard, it is worth noting the existence of a report that the Prosecutor of the Supreme Court Fernando Sequeros SazatornilThe official document "La venta de semillas de cannabis, equipos y materiales para su cultivo, así como su propaganda, como actos de trascendencia penal" was published in 2003 under the title "La venta de semillas de cannabis, equipos y materiales para su cultivo, así como su propaganda, como actos de trascendencia penal". This official document has been used since its publication by all companies in the seed sector in Spain as a legal endorsement of their activity in the absence of a specific regulation. From its content, it is worth mentioning that the prosecutor emphasizes that the UN drug control lists include the following "any plant of the genus cannabis, excluding seeds because they lack the active ingredient".. Likewise, the Prosecutor makes it clear that selling cultivation equipment or advertising about it lacks any criminal significance.
What about cultivation?
This is where the legislation becomes more ambiguous and risky. It is clear that the idea of any user who buys these seeds is to plant and grow them, but before taking this step it is better to get informed.
The cultivation of cannabis is not expressly regulated in the recreational sphere at the state level, although it is tolerated in certain cases, such as when it is demonstrated that the results of the cultivation are for personal use and that there is no commercial or distribution purpose.
While in theory cultivation for personal and private use is not directly criminalized, judicial and police interpretation can vary, and many people have been prosecuted for not being able to clearly demonstrate the private and personal nature of their cultivation. This has led to surreal situations and lacking any legal certainty in which growers with a few plants or a few grams of cannabis have been tried for crimes against public health, being accused and even convicted of drug trafficking, while others, with much larger quantities, have been judicially endorsed as having produced or acquired all the substance for their own consumption, excluding them from any criminal liability.
In order to bring the literalness of the law down to earth a little, we can highlight the Article 368 of the Spanish Penal Code, which severely punishes acts related to drug trafficking, including illegal cultivation:
"Those who carry out acts of cultivation, processing or trafficking, or otherwise promote, favor or facilitate the illegal consumption of toxic drugs, narcotics or psychotropic substances [...] shall be punished with imprisonment of three to six years and a fine of three times the value of the drug".
This means that, even if you buy seeds legally, if you plant them and have the misfortune of having to explain yourself for them to the police or a judge and fail to prove that you meet the above criteria, you may have legal problems.
To sum up...
As a seed buyer you can be very calm when it comes to making your purchases. In Spain you have plenty of options and information to get the varieties and genetics that best suit your tastes and needs and even to innovate and look for new smells and flavors. Of course, if your idea is to grow them, we recommend that you get information and assess the risks depending on where you want to put your crop, and the size and purpose of it. As we have said before, the current legislation in Spain is ambiguous, and although there are legal ways for companies (such as obtaining licenses from the Ministry of Interior limited for companies engaged in the pharmaceutical business), for self-cultivators there is always a risk if you act without knowledge or without sufficient information.
We hope that with everything we have explained in this article, you will have absolute security and peace of mind that you will not have any problem beyond choose from the exclusive catalog that we offer you from World Breeders.
