Medicinal cannabis in Spain: what the 2025 decree covers and what it leaves out
What Spain's first regulation of medicinal cannabis authorises, who can prescribe it, how it is dispensed, and why a cannabis association is not a therapeutic route.
August 16, 2026
Since 2025 Spain has had a specific rule on the medicinal use of cannabis: Real Decreto 903/2025, de 7 de octubre (Royal Decree 903/2025 of 7 October), which opens a strictly healthcare route based on preparations made under pharmaceutical control, prescribed by hospital specialist physicians and dispensed by authorised hospital pharmacy services. It is not a legalisation of consumption or a general permit to use: the rule narrowly limits who prescribes, what product may be used and by what route it reaches the patient. And, above all, it does not connect at any point with cannabis associations: the healthcare route and the associative route are separate legal figures that do not communicate with each other.
Cannasys Maps is not a medical service
This directory is informational. We do not provide healthcare, we do not assess clinical situations and we do not offer guidance on treatments. Nor is this content legal advice or a growing guide. Cannabis associations are not a therapeutic route and do not replace a healthcare professional. Any question about health belongs with a registered doctor or the public health system; any question about how a rule applies, with a lawyer.
What Royal Decree 903/2025 authorises
Until this rule was approved, Spain had no framework of its own dedicated to cannabis preparations for medicinal purposes. What existed was the general medicines regime: a product only reached the patient if it held a marketing authorisation, with its summary of product characteristics and its indications approved by the relevant regulatory agency. Outside that circuit there was no intermediate door.
Royal Decree 903/2025 creates precisely that intermediate door, and it does so with a very conservative logic. Instead of authorising "cannabis" as a substance for free therapeutic use, it regulates one specific type of pharmaceutical preparation, made from raw material with verifiable quality standards and with full traceability, in a circuit where the Agencia Española de Medicamentos y Productos Sanitarios (AEMPS), the Spanish medicines agency, is the reference authority. The axis of the rule is not the plant: it is pharmaceutical control of the product.
903/2025
Royal Decree of 7 October establishing the Spanish framework for the medicinal use of cannabis preparations, published in the BOE
It is worth fixing the starting point: this is a health-sector reglamento (implementing regulation), not a reform of the Criminal Code or of public-safety law. Everything that was prohibited before the decree in the field of consumption and possession remains so afterwards. If you want the general picture of that part, it is set out in the legal framework for cannabis in Spain.
Compounded formulations and hospital pharmacy
The route chosen by the Spanish legislator is that of compounding. A fórmula magistral (a magistral formula, or compounded medicine) is a medicine prepared by a pharmacist for one specific patient, following an individualised prescription; a preparado normalizado (standardised preparation) follows a standard composition set out in the corresponding formulary. In both cases there is a pharmacist answerable for the preparation, the labelling and the storage conditions.
That decision has three practical consequences that are often misread:
- The point of delivery is the hospital. Dispensing is a matter for authorised hospital pharmacy services, not for the counter of a neighbourhood pharmacy.
- The product is not interchangeable with anything from the street. A preparation made to pharmaceutical standards is not comparable to plant material with no analytical control, whatever its origin.
- There is no open commercial channel. No sales in herbal shops, no internet orders, no intermediaries. An advertisement offering "medicinal cannabis with delivery" is describing an illegal activity, not a consequence of the decree.
Traceability is the other central element. Every step — origin of the raw material, preparation, prescription, delivery and follow-up — is documented within the health system. That is precisely what no structure outside that system can replicate.
Who can prescribe, and in what cases
Prescribing is reserved to hospital specialist physicians. This is not a "cannabis prescription" that any professional at any level of care can issue: the decree places the decision inside the hospital setting, with the individual assessment and follow-up that setting implies.
On the question of which cases, it is worth being especially precise, because this is where most confusion arises. The royal decree itself does not contain a closed list of indications: it entrusts the AEMPS with publishing monographs in the Formulario Nacional (the national formulary), and it is those monographs that set out the indications and conditions of use for each preparation. Anyone who wants to check the detail has to go to two separate sources: the text of Real Decreto 903/2025, de 7 de octubre, published in the BOE, and the monographs the AEMPS publishes over time.
This article does not reproduce that clinical content or attempt to interpret it, for a simple reason: doing so would amount to hinting at indications, and that competence belongs exclusively to doctors. Anyone with a specific question should put it to their doctor, not to a directory.
Where to check the text
The BOE, Spain's official state gazette, publishes the consolidated version of each rule, with later amendments incorporated. It is the only source that reflects the decree's state in force at any given moment: press reports and summaries age, the consolidated text does not. The same goes for the monographs of the Formulario Nacional, which are consulted at the AEMPS itself.
Why an association is not a medicinal channel
A cannabis association is a non-profit entity constituted under the general legislation on associations, whose operation rests on the case-law doctrine of shared consumption and on a closed circuit among adults who already consume. Its nature is explained in detail in what a cannabis club is and in what a cannabis social club is.
None of that amounts to a healthcare authorisation. An association is not a pharmaceutical establishment, holds no health authorisation, does not manufacture medicines and is not subject to the quality control, pharmacovigilance and traceability requirements that medicines law imposes. It therefore cannot occupy the place the decree reserves for hospital pharmacy, neither partially nor "de facto".
| Element | Healthcare route (RD 903/2025) | Associative route |
|---|---|---|
| Governing framework | Medicines law and specific implementing regulation | Legislation on associations and case-law doctrine on shared consumption |
| Who decides on access | A hospital specialist physician, by individualised prescription | The bodies of the association, under its statutes |
| Product | Pharmaceutical preparation made under control and traceability | Collective self-supply, with no status as a medicine |
| Point of delivery | Authorised hospital pharmacy service | The association's premises, in a closed circuit among members |
| Recognised purpose | Therapeutic, under the conditions of use set out in the monographs of the Formulario Nacional | Associative, not therapeutic |
| Oversight | Health authority | Register of associations and ordinary administrative and police control |
From this follows a useful practical test: an association that presents itself as a "medicinal club", talks about "treatments", offers "therapeutic cards" or asks for a medical report as though it were a prescription is using categories the decree does not contemplate. None of those figures exists in the healthcare framework or in the associative one. We have gathered other signs of this kind in the signs that a club is not complying.
The reverse also holds: a document issued by an association has no healthcare value at all. It is not a prescription, it proves nothing to a doctor and it opens no access within the health system.
Hospital pharmacy and community pharmacy
One of the most repeated questions since the decree was published is whether these preparations will be collectable at the pharmacy round the corner. The answer the rule gives is unequivocal: dispensing belongs exclusively to authorised hospital pharmacy services. The retail pharmacy — the community pharmacy, the one on the street — is not part of that circuit.
The text does provide for one narrow exception: the autonomous regions may enable remote dispensing in cases of vulnerability or where geographical barriers make it hard for the patient to travel. It is important to read it for what it is: a delivery arrangement within the same hospital circuit, not the opening of a separate channel or an authorisation for some other establishment to dispense.
It is worth separating, then, what the rule says from what is said around it. The decree does not set a timetable for extension or a review clause that would open the door to community pharmacy; any change in that direction would require a later rule that does not exist today. In a field that has moved so much in a few years, the difference between "it has been approved" and "it is being discussed" is the whole difference.
What the rule does NOT cover
Much of the confusion that followed the decree comes from attributing to it effects it does not have. These are the main ones:
It does not legalise consumption
The general regime is unchanged: consumption and possession in public places remain an administrative offence, with the consequences described in the fines for consumption in public places.
It does not enable "medicinal" home growing
The rule regulates pharmaceutical preparations made under control. It creates no authorisation to grow on one's own account, not even on health grounds.
It gives no exemption at a roadside check
Road safety rules apply on their own terms, regardless of where the substance came from. A treatment does not work as a safe-conduct, and any question about this goes to the prescribing doctor.
It does not change the status of associations
Cannabis associations remain exactly where they were: outside the healthcare circuit and subject to the same legal uncertainty as before the decree.
There is one last side effect worth anticipating. Every time a rule on cannabis is approved, a commercial discourse appears that uses it as a sales argument: "it's legal now", "it's medicinal now", "with the new decree you can get access". None of those phrases corresponds to the content of Royal Decree 903/2025: the rule opens no access channel outside the healthcare circuit it itself describes.
Browse the directory as information
If what you want is to understand how cannabis associations are organised in your city — what they are, how they work and what they require — you can go through the catalogue and the map by locality. It is information, not access: admission always depends on each association.
The hub by locality is on the cities page, which groups the listings for the places where associations have the strongest presence.
Frequently asked questions
Can I obtain medicinal cannabis at a cannabis association?
No. The route provided for in the decree runs through the healthcare circuit: prescription by hospital specialist physicians and dispensing at authorised hospital pharmacy services. An association is not a healthcare establishment and is not part of that circuit, however it may present itself.
Can it be bought at my local pharmacy?
No. Dispensing is exclusive to authorised hospital pharmacy services. The only exception provided for is the remote dispensing that the autonomous regions may enable on grounds of vulnerability or geographical barriers, always within that same circuit. Any extension to the retail pharmacy would require a later rule that does not exist today.
Does a medical report open the doors of a club?
It does not have that effect. The conditions of admission are set by each association's statutes and the decision is theirs; a health document is not a right of entry and obliges no one. Neither does the healthcare route give entry to an association, nor the associative route entry to the health system.
Does the decree mean cannabis is now legal in Spain?
No. It regulates one specific healthcare situation and leaves the rest of the framework intact: consumption and possession in public spaces remain punishable, and trafficking remains a criminal offence. The full overview is in the article on the legal framework.
