Italian cannabis legalisation vote delayed but reform potential remains

By Avinash Tharoor

The Italian government has postponed a vote on cannabis legalisation to September after a right-wing parliamentary group purposefully derailed it, but public support for reform remains high.

On Monday July 25, a bill was introduced in the Italian Chamber of Deputies to legalise and regulate the cannabis trade. Currently, the cultivation or sale of cannabis may result in a prison sentence, while possession is likely to garner a fine.

The bill, put forward by the Inter-gruppo Parlamentare Cannabis Legale (IPCL), a cross-party group of parliamentarians, was postponed after opposing politicians introduced hundreds of amendments. Over three-quarters of the amendments – around 1,300 of 1,700 – were introduced by the Alleanza Popolare (Popular Alliance), a right-wing splinter group of Silvio Berlusconi’s People of Freedom party.

Marco Perduca, former Italian senator and coordinator of the Legalizziamo (Let’s Legalise) campaign, claims that many of the proposed amendments were spurious and deliberately time-consuming. Requests to “delete paragraphs or move words around” were made with “the intent of delaying or derailing the process”, Perduca told TalkingDrugs.

The derailing attempt was somewhat successful, as mere hours after its introduction to parliament, the vote on the bill was postponed until September.

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