Italian court rules home-grown cannabis is legal

Political parties clash as supreme court overturns drug sentence to outcry from addiction groups

ITALY’S supreme court has ruled that cultivating cannabis on a small scale for personal use is legal in a landmark judgment likely to cause an outcry.

After being asked to clarify conflicting interpretations of the law, the Court of Cassation ruled the crime of growing narcotic drugs should exclude “small amounts grown domestically for the exclusive use of the grower”.

The decision, made on Dec 19 but revealed in recent days, provoked criticism from groups dealing with drugdependency.

“The court has opened the way, now it’s up to us,” said Matteo Mantero, a senator from the governing coalition party, the 5-Star Movement. He presented an amendment to the 2020 budget calling for legalisation and regulation of domestic cannabis use, but it was ruled inadmissible by the senate speaker from Silvio Berlusconi’s conservative Forza Italia party.

“Drugs cause harm. Forget about growing them or buying them in shops,” Matteo Salvini, the leader of the Right-wing League Party said yesterday, referring to widespread shops that sell low-strength “legal weed”. In 2016, legislation allowed cannabis with a psychotropic active ingredient level below 0.6 per cent to be sold legally.

Maurizio Gasparri, a senator from Forza Italia, which is allied to the League, said the first law the centreright coalition would approve if it came to power “will cancel the absurd verdict of the court”.

Even though the supreme court in 2008 ruled the cultivation of cannabis plants – commercially or in private – to be illegal, the issue has remained confused, with different courts at different levels giving contradictory judgments.

The issue came before the Court of Cassation last October when a 29-yearold Neapolitan appealed against the findings of the Naples Court of Appeal, which gave him a one-year sentence for growing two cannabis plants, with which he made a joint. The verdict effectively overturns the Naples ruling, stating that, while the growing of cannabis remains illegal, if it is for personal use then no law has been broken.

However, it does not necessarily follow that every court will follow suit.

Groups and organisations that work to combat drug dependency expressed grave reservations. The conservative

Livatino Study Centre argued that the ruling represented an “alarming disassociation from reality”, citing research showing that cannabis is the most widely used drug by young Italians.

“To rule that the domestic cultivation of drugs is legal… shows a worrying disassociation from reality as well as being hypocritical, given that the increased defusion of drugs everyday kills more innocent victims,” it said.

However, Benedetto Della Vedova, the secretary of the Piu Europa party, called the ruling “full of good sense”.