Italian Constitutional Court rejects referendum to legalize cannabis

The Italian citizens' initiative to legalize personal cannabis use was blocked by the Italian Constitutional Court, even though a a petition on the subject has garnered 630,000 signatures, enough to be put to a vote.

The results of the online referendum, held in 2021, meant that Italian citizens were ready to vote to legalize the personal cultivation and possession of cannabis. In a ruling handed down on Wednesday, however, the judges stated that the proposed law would have forced Italy to violate its international obligations regarding the prevention of drug trafficking.

The referendum proposal aimed to legalize the cultivation of cannabis for personal use and to ease penalties for other cannabis-related crimes, so that offenders would no longer face prison sentences for selling small amounts of the drug.

The president of the Constitutional Court, Giuliano Amato, stated that the referendum could be interpreted as including other narcotics considered hard drugs, such as opium, which could not be legalized. «This amounts to forcing us to violate multiple international obligations,» Mr. Amato said.

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In response to the decision, members of the Referendum Cannabis association stated: «This is not a defeat for us and the hundreds of thousands of citizens »who have championed the legalization of cannabis. Today marks a defeat for institutions that are no longer capable of understanding a significant portion of this country."

«This is the failure of a court that has been unable to guarantee Italians a constitutional right, and of a parliament that, for thirty years, has failed to crush the Mafia…»

«The only winner today is the mafia….».

«Now, we're going to take a few days to figure out how to reignite the fight for legal cannabis, and we promise you this: we won't stop this time either!».

Since 2019, growing cannabis at home for personal use is no longer a crime in Italy. Since 2016, possession of small amounts of cannabis has also ceased to be a criminal offense.

Activists had hoped that Italy would follow in the footsteps of countries such as Malta, the first European country to legalize cannabis for adult use, and from countries such as the’Germany, the Luxembourg and the Switzerland, all of which are in the process of creating a form of legal cannabis market.