ABSTRACT
The origins of the Spanish legal framework regulating drugs goes back to the 1848 Penal Code and to the laws and regulatory instruments which were gradually adopted during the period 1918 to 1928. Compliance with international agreements played a determining role in the development of the emerging legislation. In the late 1960s the cultivation, production, manufacture and sale of narcotics was essentially regulated by Article 344 of the Penal Code and Law 17 of 8 April 1967. In line with the Royal Decree-Law of 30 April 1928, the Service of Narcotics Control was responsible for providing due authorisations to professionals. National, and above all foreign, media presented the reform as a decriminalisation of the use of drugs in Spain, although in fact the consumption of drugs had never constituted a crime within the Spanish legal system. By 1985 the Government Delegation to the National Plan on Drugs was established as a government organisation.
