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Finances going to pot Diary is beginning to like Spain. A forthcoming trip to wander among howling mountain wolves is enough to whet the appetite, but there has been so much anarchic fun oscillating around La Furia Roja that childhood memories of terrible trips to Torremolinos-on-Tyne, sand flies, regular train strikes and idle mañana culture are fading fast. Quite apart from the visual pleasure of Spain's fluent football masterclasses, we've also been treated to town councils gambling their remaining fortunes on the Spanish Lottery to bail them out of the eurozone debt crisis – and winning. Drugs pay: Spanish officials plan to rent out land to grow marijuana .(Pic: Shutterstock/Amihays.) There was no braver response to a global crisis exacerbated by one supranational gamble – the eurozone – than the debt-ridden town of Sodeto dusting itself off and heading back to the proverbial routlette wheel to enjoy a $950m jackpot. Now, the Catalonian town of Rasquera has targeted another ‘soft vice' through which it can pay off its debts. The local authority – some £1m in the proverbial Roja – has agreed to rent out land to grow marijuana. Local officials say the plan will bring in much-needed income, and eliminate local mafias who control the illegal drugs trade. Quirky, eh? Doesn't seem to answer any wider questions about legality – but let's not let the small matter of such things as ‘laws' get in the way of innovative local government money-making? Some – not us, obviously, we've checked with our lawyers – might say that's what localism is all about. Could Britain benefit from such practices? We should entertain all ideas during this period of enforced austerity. Pass the Dutchie, Eric and Grant, I've got an idea… (Is this a ‘joint' initiative with other authorities? Ed)

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Finances going to pot

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