Before going to sleep, last night, I drank an infusion of cannabis sativa, better known as cannabis light, the light and until now legal one. It is the food that Giorgia Meloni and the government majority want to ban in Italy. Comparing it to a drug (i.e. to cannabis indica, which however is another species of plant). And punishing those who possess it, or use it, with the same rules that sanction drug dealers and traffickers.

I must say that I did not have the hallucinogenic effects that the right in Parliament imagines. I did not feel like a rock star on the stage of the Circus Maximus and I was neither better nor worse. Perhaps I benefited from a more relaxed sleep, despite the heat of these weeks. But I am not able to prove it, since I have not undergone a scientific test.

Who are the punishers of light cannabis?

However, I did not use it recreationally, as the promoters of the new law curiously intend, that is, I did not find myself with a crowd of friends on the beach, sitting in a circle on the sand, clandestinely passing the teacup around.

In fact, there is a normal food use of cannabis sativa, a plant also known as hemp. Just like you do with a herbal tea, a chamomile, an infusion to take before going to sleep, or whenever you like. Without having to ask permission from the government or the Forza Italia senator, Maurizio Gasparri, one of the bitterest punishers of cannabis light.

“Against sleeping pills and benzodiazepines”

I have never smoked tobacco, not even hashish or anything like that. I don’t use drugs. I don’t drink hard liquor and I limit myself to a glass of wine or beer on friendly occasions. In short, I’m not the ideal companion for those who want to get high. My medicine, to sleep well, is to do a few hours of sport a day. But since this is only possible on vacation, the problem remains for the rest of the year.

The new law is not only anti-scientific. But also humanly vile: because it punishes the many people who, due to advanced age or autoimmune diseases, are afflicted by chronic pain, sleep disorders, anxiety and had found a remedy in the legal derivatives of light cannabis.

In my fifties, like most of the population, my nights of sleep began to get shorter. The worst joke is falling asleep again ten minutes before the alarm clock rings. I spoke about this two years ago with a neuropsychologist friend. I warned him that I refuse on principle any synthetic drug that causes drowsiness, habituation or dependence. Like benzodiazepines, sleeping pills, tranquilizers and other legal drugs: whose abuse, even by doctors who easily administer them, has become a social problem in the United States.

What the neuropsychologist recommended

“You don’t need them, in fact – replies the friend -. You should try CBD, cannabidiol. It is a natural chemical compound contained in legal cannabis sativa, the one found on free sale”. I won’t tell you about the properties of CBD and other extracts and derivatives of hemp, which you can read online. The European Union, legalizing its cultivation and trade, for both industrial and food uses, has published a summary here.

The active ingredient that, according to the law, makes indica hemp a narcotic (i.e. the other species not in free trade) is delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol, a molecule abbreviated to THC. For cannabis sativa (i.e. the species in free trade) the European Union establishes instead that “hemp seeds intended for sowing must be accompanied by proof that the THC level of the variety in question is not higher than 0.3 percent”. In other words, if you want to get high with light cannabis, even by chewing or smoking it, you’ll be wasting your time: it would be like trying to get drunk on grape juice.

The anger of Italian farmers

On this European basis, Law 242 of 2 December 2016 also allowed in Italy the cultivation, importation and free sale of cannabis sativa derivatives. Thus was born an expanding sector that employs 11,000 people, gathered in small and medium-sized companies with an annual turnover, according to Cristiano Fini, president of Cia Italian farmers, of half a billion euros.

A few nights ago, while Parliament was distracted discussing the sex of Algerian boxer Imane Khelif at the Paris Olympics, the Constitutional Affairs and Justice Committees of the Chamber approved a total ban on the cultivation, importation and sale of cannabis sativa for food use. And they radically restricted its uses in industry and cosmetics. If the Senate confirms this ideological direction in September, which has no scientific basis, possessing the same number of hemp tea bags that I photographed in the image next to the title could be equivalent to possession of hashish, heroin or cocaine in massive doses. And therefore lead to arrest and a criminal conviction.

The record of Benito Mussolini’s Italy

For the Italian right, it is a historic tailspin. During the 1930s and the regime of Benito Mussolini, a figure not secondary in the political formation of many defenders of Made in Italy today, Italy was the world’s second largest producer of hemp sativa behind the Soviet Union. The amendment that risks killing 11,000 jobs is now included in the government’s latest security decree.

This is how the government bury every agricultural innovation – by M. Tonelli

The new article 13 bis actually says: “In order to avoid the intake of products from hemp inflorescences that may promote, through alterations in the psychophysical state of the user, behaviors that put public safety or security or road safety at risk, the following modifications are made to the law of 2 December 2016 number 242…”. So why is there no reference to alcohol abuse? To wine? To spirits? 9.7 percent of road accidents in Italy are related to alcohol intake and 3.2 percent to narcotics (data here).

The Gift to the Drug Lobbies

And yet, this is what the new law states: “The importation, transfer, processing, distribution, trade, transportation, dispatch, shipping and delivery of hemp (cannabis sativa) inflorescences is prohibited… even in semi-processed, dried or crushed form, as well as products containing such inflorescences, including extracts, resins and oils derived from them. The sanctions apply…” provided for by the Presidential Decree number 309/1990, which is the law that punishes drug trafficking and dealing. Even if CBDs, as I have personally experienced, do not produce narcotic effects. And there is no news article that demonstrates a single accident or fight caused by drinking a herbal tea with hemp sativa extracts.

The new law, which also places Italy outside the European Union’s guidelines in this field, is not only anti-scientific. But also humanly vile: because it punishes the many people who, due to advanced age or autoimmune diseases, are afflicted by chronic pain, sleep disorders, anxiety and had found in the legal derivatives of light cannabis a remedy that, at normal doses according to the World Health Organization, does not give any side effects or risks of addiction. But above all, they had freely chosen a treatment that was much more natural and economical than pharmaceutical alternatives.

Patients harmed by the decree

A large silent community of patients is thus damaged by parliamentarians with fifteen thousand euros a month of daily allowances-reimbursements, with supplementary health care guaranteed by the State, who claim to legislate even on what is not harmful to health. Obviously, from September, if the majority from Giorgia Meloni to Maurizio Gasparri remains faithful to its objectives, the usual opioids, benzodiazepines and synthetic substances dispensed by the national health service will remain available. And hundreds of millions of turnover generated today by the legal trade of cannabis sativa will be transferred to the pharmaceutical industries. In short, a nice gift from the government that, indirectly, also rewards organized crime: because in addition to already importing any type of illegal drug, from next autumn it will be able to sell innocent hemp.

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