Italian lawmakers are considering a law that would allow people to grow up to five cannabis plants for personal use.
Rome – Italian lawmakers will begin discussing Monday a proposal to ease up on the recreational use and growing of cannabis — a highly inflammatory topic, with the government on the fence.
Were the draft to pass into law, people would be allowed to grow up to five cannabis plants for personal use and keep up to 15 grams of marijuana at home and five grams on their person.
It would still be illegal for people to buy or sell weed or smoke marijuana in public, but the Italian state could start issuing licenses allowing the drug to be grown and sold in a similar way to tobacco.
Several European countries, as well as a number of US states, have legalized marijuana in recent years, both for medical and recreational use.
Proponents of this approach argue that decades of international prohibition have manifestly failed to halt the worldwide spread of cannabis consumption.
In its latest annual report, Italy’s Anti-Mafia Directorate criticized “the total failure of repressive action,” to limit marijuana consumption.
The directorate said it supports relaxing existing laws in order to ease “the workload of the judiciary and free up resources for the security forces and judges in order to fight other crime.”