Galicia Minors Protection Law: Implications for the CBD Sector

The regulation, designed for child protection, extends its reach to the adult sphere. And it is precisely there where the regulation presents its main legal vulnerabilities.

The official document is available for consultation: Lei de protección da saúde das persoas menores (BOPG No. 304, Dec. 19, 2025).

1. What the Law Says

The law classifies as a serious infraction the act of "giving away or selling any type of merchandising with the identifying image of cannabis to the population, regardless of their age".

Read it again, because here lies the heart of the problem: "regardless of their age".

The practical implications are significant. A 50-year-old father who gives his 30-year-old son a T-shirt with a leaf: fine. An adult who sells another adult a lighter with a leaf: fine. An adult-to-adult transaction, in a lawful context, becomes subject to regional punitive power.

For serious infractions, the law sets a minimum of 3,005 euros, a maximum of 15,025 euros, and in case of repeat offense or very serious infractions it can reach 601,012 euros. Sanctioning with thousands of euros conduct linked to a low-value object raises proportionality questions that courts typically examine closely. The sanction/object ratio can exceed 300 to 1, which in administrative litigation could be considered disproportionate —one of the aspects most susceptible to judicial review.

Additionally, a rule of forced invisibility is imposed: specialized establishments are prohibited from displaying Cannabis sativa images towards the outside. The legislator regulates not only the "product", but the symbol and its public visibility. And a prohibition of access for minors to these types of establishments is also established, creating by definition an "adults only" space.

And this sets the stage for the paradox: if minors cannot enter, what sense does it make to prohibit inside what occurs only between adults?

2. The European Precedent: Cannabis Store Amsterdam

There is a European precedent that is invoked time and again when a cannabis leaf appears in legal debate: the "Cannabis Store Amsterdam" case (EU General Court, T-683/18, 2019).

At first glance, the easy headline would be: "Europe said the cannabis leaf is contrary to public policy." Case closed? Is the Xunta right? Not so fast.

In T-683/18, what was being judged was not "T-shirt commerce" or "store access." Something else was being judged: an attempt to register a trademark with the EUIPO. And the trademark was not just a leaf. It was an evocative set: stylized leaves, the word "STORE", and "AMSTERDAM" as the central element —the semantic hook.

The Court did not construct a universal prohibition of the leaf. What it reasoned was that that specific combination could evoke, in the average imagination, the drug tourism associated with Amsterdam and suggest psychoactive effects for certain products.

The key point that deserves attention is the distinction between trademark registration (granting an exclusive right over a sign, industrial property) and commercial use of a sign (a different matter, subject to other rules and contexts). Transposing an industrial property reasoning into an automatic sanction for retail commerce between adults raises, legally, an argumentative gap that requires further justification.

3. The Forbidden Automatism

The Galician law operates as if there were an automatic rule: any leaf (or "identifying image") = serious infraction. This automatism is the aspect that presents the most difficulties in court, because it creates tension with two fundamental requirements of administrative sanctioning law.

First, you don't sanction on autopilot. Law 40/2015 requires subjective imputation: "Only persons who are responsible by way of intent or negligence may be sanctioned." In plain language: the Administration cannot simply see a leaf and fine. It must explain why that specific conduct, in that specific context, deserves reproach.

Second, the general framework requires that, when designing and imposing sanctions, suitability and proportionality be observed, choosing the least restrictive measure and justifying its necessity. And here the hole appears: how do you justify that a T-shirt sold between adults in a space where minors cannot be present is a real threat to minors' health?

The image is polysemic: it can be vindictive, industrial, cultural, aesthetic, political, informative. A T-shirt with a message directly inciting consumption is very different from an educational T-shirt about medicinal CBD, from a T-shirt with a political message about legalization, from a T-shirt with Bob Marley artistic style, or from a T-shirt about sustainable industrial hemp.

The Administration's legal obligation is to distinguish, explain, individualize. What the regulation does in practice is equalize everything and sanction.

4. The Incoherence: Tobacco Shops Open, CBD Stores Shielded

This argument has a constitutional basis: it is grounded in the principle of equality and the prohibition of arbitrariness. And it gains particular relevance when comparing how the system treats different sources of risk.

The European Commission puts annual tobacco deaths at around 700,000 in the EU. Despite this, minors can enter a tobacco shop accompanying an adult (sales are another matter). With alcohol, something similar happens: normalized social presence, everyday commercial exposure.

And now the contrast: minors are prohibited by law from setting foot in a CBD store. Even in sensitive areas such as weapons, the legal system contemplates specific and controlled scenarios for minors (for example, authorizations linked to hunting/sports under conditions), which shows that the law usually opts for regulation and control, not symbolic "absolute taboo."

The legal question is inevitable: where is the scientific basis and objective justification for treating CBD (and its symbology) this way compared to proven health risks?

5. The "Adult Bubble" Paradox

The law itself constructs this scenario: minors are prohibited from accessing these establishments (by definition, the interior is adults only), but at the same time it is prohibited to sell/give away merchandising "regardless of age."

The key question: if there are no children inside, what legal interest is protected by prohibiting a 50-year-old adult from selling a lighter with a leaf to a 40-year-old?

Technical answer: none.

When the argument of minor protection is used to restrict adult freedom in spaces where there are no minors, the regulation may be exceeding its declared sanitary purpose.

6. The Nuclear Question: Why Does a Minors' Law Restrict Adults?

The law presents itself as protection of minors. But it prohibits conduct between adults. In law, when the means bears no rational relationship to the end, we have a rationality breakdown —what is technically called teleological incongruence.

An illustrative example: it would be as if, to prevent children from watching violent movies, adults were prohibited from watching action films in their homes. An analogy that highlights the disconnect: the adult is restricted from a lawful object even when the minor is legally "off stage."

Why does this become illegal? For three fundamental reasons.

First, freedom and personal autonomy (articles 1.1 and 10 of the Constitution). An adult has the right to buy, possess, and give away legal objects if they don't harm third parties. The legal framework requires that restrictions on adult freedom be properly justified.

Second, a potential misuse of power. The declared purpose of the regulation (protection of minors) may not correspond with its practical effect: the restriction of a symbology from social space.

Third, the suitability and necessity test that fails here. If the minor doesn't enter, the causal link breaks. And a measure without causal link usually fails for lack of suitability and excessive restriction.

The precedent this would set deserves consideration: if it is accepted that adults can be prohibited from legal objects "because some child might see them someday," the criterion would be applicable to other areas —cinema, fashion, art, political expression— which raises relevant questions about the limits of regulatory intervention in a democratic society.

7. The Conceptual Confusion

The law mixes three distinct legal planes. Trademark registration, which belongs to industrial property and grants a monopoly over a sign (this is what case T-683/18 Cannabis Store Amsterdam dealt with). The shop window or outdoor advertising, where restrictions may exist due to impact on minors passing on public roads (the "opaque stores" of the law). And sale to adults inside, which is commerce plus freedom of enterprise with maximum constitutional protection (the merchandising infraction "regardless of age").

Even if someone defended outdoor restrictions due to the presence of minors, that does not justify prohibiting what occurs inside, between adults, in a premises minors cannot access.

8. The Euro-Shield: Kanavape and the Prohibition of Hypotheses

The Kanavape ruling (CJEU, C-663/18, 2020) establishes the European standard of evidentiary requirements for restrictions on CBD products.

The CJEU leaves two key ideas. First: the risk to public health cannot be based on purely hypothetical considerations. Second: restrictions must be supported by an assessment based on the most reliable scientific data and recent research results.

Applied to the Galician case: where is the study demonstrating that seeing a leaf on a T-shirt causes harm? Where is the evidence that selling a lighter to an adult in an "adults only" premises protects children's health?

Without solid scientific evidence, the public health justification loses its foundation and the restriction is called into question.

Conclusion: A Regulation with Significant Vulnerabilities

The main vulnerabilities of this regulation are identifiable. Automatic sanctioning without individualized reasoning. Internal incoherence: creates an adults-only space and then prohibits conduct between adults within that space. Questionable proportionality: high sanctions for minimal-impact conduct. Differentiated treatment: CBD access is restricted while normalized exposure to other documented health risks such as tobacco is maintained. And tension with the EU standard (Kanavape doctrine): restrictions based on hypotheses rather than scientific evidence.

This regulation presents aspects that, in the opinion of our legal team, may not withstand judicial scrutiny on matters of proportionality, rationality, reasoning, and scientific evidence.

The questions it raises are sufficiently relevant to warrant an in-depth judicial review.