Italy legalizes diet cannabis with 0.5% THC

Italy has decided to put an end to both the hypocrisy surrounding the sale of hemp flowers and the various political and legal battles on the subject, and has decided to regulate the sale of light cannabis by taxing it at 4 cents per gram and allowing a maximum rate of 0.5% of THC in the finished product.

A tax that effectively legalizes the activity

An amendment to the Finance Act, proposed by Senators Loredana De Petris and Paola Nugnes (LeU), Monica Cirinnà and Daniela Sbrollini (Pd), Francesco Mollame and Matteo Mantero (M5S), has been approved by the Italian Senate.

The amendment therefore creates an excise tax of 4 cents per gram of cannabis light and authorizes a THC level of 0.5% in finished products. The amendment clearly specifies that it is now possible to sell cannabis light in flower or resin form, as its cultivation has already been authorized since 2016.

The text also stipulates that from January 1, 2020, biomass from Cannabis sativa L. be subject to a tax of 12 euros per tonne per percentage point of cannabidiol (CBD) present. The costs will be borne by the manufacturer of the products, who may import them from other European Union countries.

«We regulate a sector of agricultural production characterized by a lack of clarity due to regulatory and jurisprudential uncertainties« , explains the senator from Palermo. «With this amendment, also signed by other colleagues from the 5-Star Movement, we define that if a plant does not contain more than 0.5% of THC, it cannot be considered a narcotic».

The end of a legal imbroglio

The voted amendment completes law 242/2016, which did not specifically mention sales, and on which was based on the latest ruling of the French Supreme Court (Cour de cassation), which focused not so much on the THC content of products, but on their «stupefying effect».

One of the senators who proposed the amendment, Matteo Mantero, commented on Facebook: «It mainly concerns biomass, but it modifies the law on hemp, allowing the marketing of flowers and above all modifying the single text for drugs by establishing once and for all that less than 0.5% of hemp THC cannot be considered a substance« .

The CBD sector in Italy account around 3,000 companies and 10,000 employees. Italy was the world's second largest hemp producer in the 1940s, behind the USSR. Its hemp industry declined sharply with the arrival of synthetic fibers, but the rediscovery of hemp's ecological and industrial virtues has made it a booming sector. By setting the bar at 0.5% THC and authorizing de facto the sale of hemp flowers and their extraction, with reasonable taxation, Italy is making a strong assault on the European market.