The position of CanaPuglia after what happened in the Senate to the detriment of the industrial hemp chain in Italy.
“I have to admit first of all that I'm a person who doesn't like writing so much. But this time I have to do it. We have overcome the lowest level of human intelligence, the one that distinguishes us from animals ”, explained President Claudio Natile.
“The situation is ridiculous. It makes me laugh and cry at the same time to read some comments from Italian politicians who sit in Parliament such as:
Excellent news is the decision of President Casellati to declare the inadmissibility of the amendment signed by Cirinnà, Mantero and others which would have effectively liberalized cannabis. Our kids must have school, work, research, opportunities, and they don't deserve to be locked up in a toilet smoking state drugs. Simone Pillon - Senator of the Northern League
The shameful rule on the cultivation and distribution of 'state drugs' blocked in the Senate.
NO to the state drug dealer, the battle of the League will never stop! Matteo Salvini
Drugs are drugs. The drug kills the soul, heart, lungs and brain. All the recovery communities are against the 'drug state'. Salvini on Twitter
'Victory for those who fight for a life free from all drugs', to then add that 'drugs are never light or harmless and we will continue to reiterate this in every office' Giorgia Meloni
'Drugged' Senator La Russa shouts to his colleague Alberto Airola who speaks of a 'political choice' and not a technical one on the rejection of the amendment as stated by the President of the Senate Casellati.
But how did we get to the whole level of discussion? I try to explain it briefly.
In Italy for some years, precisely since the beginning of 2017, hemp, botanically Cannabis Sativa Linnaeus has become "cannabis light", "legal hemp", "legal marijuana".
It was an alteration, an entrepreneurial gimmick conceived by a group of people unrelated to the hemp supply chain who, exploiting the regulatory void of 242/16 which did not contemplate the intended use of the inflorescences produced by the plant, triggered a socio-economic phenomenon of great importance.
The problem is that hemp has once again been associated with a mere smoking product, sold as a 'product for technical or research use' in order not to incur penalties.
The problem is that shops have been opened (AND AUTHORIZED) without a regulation, vending machines near sensitive places such as schools, without any rules to respect. With the leaf of the old Italian green gold banged on all the windows, Amsterdam style. Really shabby. But above all we served on a silver platter the opportunity for Italian probationists to denounce those who consume hemp and derivatives.
Let me be clear: I am not against the use of inflorescences as a smoke product, but it was not supposed to be like that. And the responsibility for this evolution is not all of the entrepreneurs indifferent to the industrial hemp supply chain who have only thought about doing business, but it is precisely the State that did not regulate the use of the inflorescences which, at the publication of the law, had to have a destination of use as a food, a rule that would have led this product to be subjected to controls similar to those that regulate the production of food. And those who wanted to smoke the herbal tea, would still have been able to do it freely as has been done since the 1990s throughout Europe where hemp herbal tea has always been sold on the market!
Of course, this all-Italian phenomenon, which is inspired by the Swiss one but with profound differences, has attracted many young people by favoring the opening of VAT numbers, about 5,000, which have given work to over 12,000 people. Accountants, printers, couriers, advertising agencies, banks and artisans have received orders from a new economy. Abandoned family lands have been recovered. At the same time, however, a plant resource has been trivialized that can contribute to an ecological conversion of industries by trivializing it as light marijuana!
But let's go back to what happened in the Senate a few days ago.
First of all it must be said that NOTHING HAS CHANGED, once again.
A sub-amendment signed by Mollame-Mantero which had the aim of regulating the trade of inflorescences and its derivatives by introducing a manufacturing tax was rejected for political-ideological and non-technical positions as they want us to believe. In this way, economic recognition would be given to the product and set clear rules and limits for everyone.
The maximum limit of THC allowed, 0.5%, has been known for years, beyond which industrial hemp crops and their products would fall within the grip of Presidential Decree 309/90, a law that, according to the opinion of leading experts on the subject, should be immediately modified because useless, expensive and dangerous. This data should be scientifically investigated because no one in Europe today knows what the level of THC actually is capable of producing a psychotropic doping effect in the human body because, as stated by the CSS opinion, the pharmacokinetics of THC "is extremely variable for each individual to individual and according to the method of recruitment "
The inflorescences and its derivatives can be sold on conditions that, as stated by the sentence of the Supreme Court of 30 May last, there is no "real doping efficacy". The Superior Health Council with the opinion of 10 April 2019 recommended "that measures be activated, in the interest of individual and public health and in application of the precautionary principle, to prevent the free sale of the aforementioned products" or of inflorescences of hemp with low THC content.
Therefore, for the same precautionary principle and the protection of public health, the sale of alcohol, tobacco and coffee should not be allowed, the abuse of which in Italy counts tens of thousands of deaths every year! Right?
When there were about 100,000 hectares of hemp in Italy and the national economy was strongly influenced by its production and processing, there was no THC limit in crops. So, were we a drug-producing state? But what are we talking about?
The drug issue is a cultural-dependent issue, as the drug historian and dear friend, Giorgio Samorini, says. In Italy hectoliters of alcohol are consumed but nobody talks about drugs because we grew up like this.
To get out of this tunnel, it is absolutely necessary to regulate the use of inflorescences as food, as had already been contemplated in 242/16. This would restore order and legality to the sector and a better perception by the
To conclude by commenting on the statements of Lega and Fratelli D'Italia:
The National Coordination of the Welcome Community (CNCA) , the largest network of reception and addiction recovery communities in the Italian third sector, does not feel represented in any way by the former minister Salvini and his positions on cannabis light.
'There are many other problems that the service system must face', declares Riccardo De Facci, president of the CNCA , 'issues that worsened during the period in which Salvini was part of the government: the increase in heroin consumption, deaths from overdose and the dozens of new substances that have flooded the market. We believe in a drug policy that is radically different from that expressed by the leader of the League. Do not try to pass us off as your accomplices in a failed and harmful 'war on drugs'.
Now we learn that Fratelli d'Italia would have received a loan of 200,000 euros from the shareholders of an American multinational that sells alcohol and that has entered the legal cannabis business in Canada. Precisely that cannabis on which the prohibitionist and wandering ax of Giorgia Meloni and her party strikes almost daily. So, Meloni fights a relentless fight against cannabis with the money of those who make money from legal cannabis: with what credibility?
In fact, L'Espresso writes : 'By far the most generous contribution to the party came from names that lead back to a multinational made in the USA: put together Ylenjia Lucaselli, Daniel Hager and Hc Consulting Srl have in fact given the small nationalist party 200,000 euro . Hager and Lucaselli are husband and wife. Hager's family is a shareholder of Southern Glazer's Wine and Spirits, the largest US company in the distribution of wines and spirits (according to Forbes estimates in 2016 it had a turnover of 16.5 billion dollars and distributed 60 million bottles of Italian wine in the States ). An American multinational that finances an Italian sovereign party? This also happens in the twisted world of neo-nationalism. And that's not the only contradiction, because Southern Glazer's has also recently entered the legal cannabis business in Canada, a sector that in theory Meloni and his people see as smoke in the eyes'.