Open in Barcelona Hemp Museum Gallery, dedicated to the culture of cannabis
The Hemp Museum Gallery, dedicated to the cannabis culture, will open its doors next Friday, May 11, in a sixteenth century palace in the historic center of Barcelona, the Palau Mornau, which has been restored and fitted out to house the museum center .
Barcelona, Reuters May 7, 2012
As reported today the promoters of the initiative, the Hemp Museum Gallery, opens with the intent to "inform and bring visitors about the past, present and future of the cannabis plant as a versatile source for industrial, nutritional , medicinal, sacramental and recreational. "
This space dedicated to the cannabis culture opens the image of the Hash Marihuana & Hemp Museum in Amsterdam (Netherlands), opened in 1985 by Ben Dronkers, founder and main driving force, and was the first in the world on this subject.
Ben Dronkers discovered in 2002 Mornau Palace, located at 35 Ample street, and felt it might be a good location for a new museum in the Catalan capital, so the building has been restored for nearly a decade collaboration of the architect Jordi Romeu.
The museum center will exhibit paintings and prints depicting the use of cannabis throughout history and some antiques, with different tools and instruments used to transform the hemp rope, paper and fabric.
The museum includes original paintings by artists of the seventeenth century, as David Teniers the Younger, Cornelis Decker and Herman Saftleven, completed with a botanical collection of eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and a medical section which exhibits one of the largest collections the world of medical cannabis bottles of the nineteenth century, as "proof the widespread use of medical cannabis in the past."
On Wednesday, as a prior to the opening of the museum, will be held at a ceremony Hemp Museum Awards of Cannabis Culture 2012 (Cannabis Culture Awards), awarded to individuals and organizations that are distinguished by promote the acceptance of cannabis in all its forms and the reintroduction of medical marijuana.
According to organizers, will be present at the ceremony the winners of the first Spanish edition of the awards, as Richard Branson, founder of Virgin Group entrepreneur, on behalf of the Comission on Global Drug Policy, the American photographer Todd McCormick, psychiatrists Frederick Polak and Lester Grinspoon, and cannabis activist Fernanda Spanish La Higuera.
The gala will feature as special guest of Bernat Pellisa Mayor Rasquera (Tarragona), who promoted the transfer of an estate of 7 hectares of land bank beach at Barceloneta Cannabis Association of Subsistence for planting cannabis for Using his associates in two greenhouses.
