The Regional Administrative Court of Lazio has suspended the decree of the Ministry of Health that included CBD, cannabidiol oil, among the narcotic substances that could be abused. In a ruling published today, Wednesday, September 11, the administrative judges accepted the appeal of ICI, the Italian company Hemp Entrepreneurs, setting a hearing on the merits for December 16. The measure approved by the Meloni government last June had included the cannabis extract in the list of drugs, prohibiting its over-the-counter sale in stores, herbalists and tobacconists. CBD extracts were therefore only available in pharmacies upon presentation of a medical prescription.
Protest by companies in the sector
According to the ICI, the decision of the Regional Administrative Court of Lazio included “the serious economic and social danger that the application of the decree would have entailed”. While waiting to rule on the merits, the administrative judges suspended the government provision. “This decision – continues the note of the entrepreneurs of the sector – represents an important victory for the industrial hemp sector, which risked suffering serious economic damage. The judges considered that the application of the decree could have had significant consequences for entrepreneurs and farmers in the sector, already heavily involved in investments related to hemp.” Already in October 2023, the Regional Administrative Court of Lazio had suspended the judgment.
The opposition rejoices
Not only companies in the sector welcome the judges' decision, but also various opposition parties. According to Marco Furfaro, head of political initiatives for the Democratic Party, the TAR's decision represents “yet another fool of this incompetent government”. Riccardo Magi, secretary of +Europa, speaks of a sentence that “dismantles all the government's prohibitionist propaganda on the light of cannabis”. While Angelo Bonelli, spokesperson for Green Europe, recalls that “light cannabis is not a drug, as established by the 2020 Court of Justice ruling, and is used in many sectors of our country: from clothing to construction”. The Green-Left Alliance has requested information from the Chamber of Deputies from the Minister of Health, Orazio Schillaci, on this specific subject. In a note, Palazzo Chigi stressed that the TAR decision concerns the decree of the Ministry of Health and not the amendment to the draft law on security: “This amendment comes to implement the judgment of the Court of Cassation n. 30475 of 30 May 2019, which maintains the marketing of derivatives of inflorescences (marjuana) and resin (hashish) “subject to the regulations of Presidential Decree n. 309 of 1990″, excluding it from Law no. 242/2016, which provides for the sole legality of the cultivation of cannabis for other purposes, strictly indicated by the law itself”.
Cover photo: Dreamstime/Howtogoto
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