Italy's top court blocks referendum on legalising cannabis growing
euronews.comItaly's constitutional court has blocked a referendum on making it legal to grow cannabis plants, arguing that it would have forced the country to violate international obligations on drug trafficking.
Backers of decriminalising cultivation in Italy accused the court of denying democratic process after a petition gained 630,000 signatures, well above the threshhold to trigger the national poll.
Benedetto Della Vedova, secretary of the centrist party + Europa, one of the promoters of the initiative, said the rejection of the referendum "deprives Italy of a public debate and an electoral process for reforms on freedom and responsibility."
"The court decided on the merits and not on the method, as its duty requires", also regretted in a press release the ADUC, one of the largest consumer associations on the peninsula.
Supporters of the popular initiative referendum believed that the legalisation of cannabis, which they say is no more harmful than legal substances such as alcohol and tobacco, would have made it possible to remedy overcrowding in prisons while focusing repression on violent criminal organisations.
Currently, the cultivation of cannabis plants incurs a sentence ranging from two to six years in prison.
Opponents of the referendum project, in the forefront of which the leader of the League (sovereign and anti-migrants) Matteo Salvini and the leader of Fratelli d'Italia (extreme right) Giorgia Meloni, considered on the other hand that it could inciteme to the general consumption of drugs.
It is a blow for legalisation and decriminalisation advocates in Europe, which has seen a number of European states - including Spain, Germany and Italy - ease penalties for possession of the drug.
The decision comes just weeks
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