Protests and Legal Battle Over Italy’s Hemp Industry Amidst Government Crackdown
Italian Court Suspends Ban on CBD Oils, But Threat to Wider Hemp Sector Remains as Sector Protests Across Country.
Italy’s embattled hemp industry came out in unified force yesterday to protest the looming government drive to ban all hemp substances.
In a positive development this morning, news broke that legal efforts in the TAR (Tribunale Amministrativo Regionale) of Lazio have successfully seen the court suspend the government decree to classify CBD oil as a narcotic substance.
However, the wider hemp industry remains under threat, leading to numerous events taking place across Italy this week, including an industry protest outside the Brindisi Prefecture governmental office and a press conference bringing together the industry’s leading voices at the Chamber of Deputies.
These joint efforts came on the eve of the first debate on the controversial amendment to Italy’s Security Bill in the Chamber.
What happened?
The hearing on a legal challenge to the controversial bill, filed by Canapa Sativa Italia, together with Giantec Srl, Società Biochimica Galloppa Srl in August, was held at the TAR of Lasio yesterday.
This appeal referred specifically to a separate effort to classify CBD ‘oral formulations’, from being classed as a narcotic.
This appeal challenged the lack of scientific evidence put forward by the government for such overt restrictions on producing, handling and distributing hemp products.
As Business of Cannabis reported in February last year, the court already shot down a similar decree, stating that ‘no evidence about the need for protection of the right to health, even from the perspective of the precautionary principle, was provided by the respondent administrations, which merely invoked such principles without, however, providing any concrete data or scientific element with respect to the case at hand.’
Since this decision, the government has provided ‘updated evidence’ supposedly supporting its efforts to ban hemp.
In a major win for the industry, the court has reportedly once again suspended the decree, recognising the significant social, economic and legal damage it could cause to the industry.
Among other expert testimony from a range of experts, the court heard from former Director of Forensic Medicine at La Sapienza University, Professor Ciallella, which demonstrated that CBD does not cause addiction of psychoactive effects, undermining the classification as a narcotic.
For now, this decision is only temporary, pending a full judicial review.
Press conference
The Italian hemp industry, alongside a swathe of agricultural associations, held a press conference on September 10, at the Chamber where the bill threatening to destroy the country’s industrial hemp, CBD and ‘cannabis light’ industries.
It comes after Meloni’s government, which has made repeated attempts to crack down on the sector, proposed an amendment in June on all ‘measures concerning hemp inflorescences and products derived therefrom’.
This amendment was successfully pushed back by the industry weeks later after raising concerns that it ‘was not based on any legal-scientific evidence’, and contravened EU law, the government reintroduced the amendment, adding a new article to the Security Bill.
The newly amended bill would also see the importation, processing, possession and sale of hemp ‘inflorescences’, which refers to the complete flower head of a plant, including stems, stalks, and flowers, placed in the Consolidated Law on Narcotic Substances.
Italian Journalist Fabrizio Dentini told Business of Cannabis: “We are talking about a decision supported by a ‘patriotic’ government whose mantra is ‘Italians first’.
“Now we understand that Italians will risk being the first and only to be stopped from selling CBD flowers, a perfectly accepted product within EU. That means that 10K operators of the Italian hemp industry, whose know-how in the past years led to the birth of the European CBD flower market, will face the risk of being blocked until, at least, appeals to European justice will prevail.
“Truly surreal if it were not for the lives of thousands of courageous entrepreneurs who once again will be forced to request the protection of European jurisdiction to return to work in peace.”
During the press conference representatives from leading hemp and agricultural groups like Canapa Sativa Italia, Federcanapa, Copagri and the CIA-Agricoltori Italiani (Confederazione Italiana Agricoltori) made a last-ditch effort to encourage the government to vote against the legislation.
Impassioned speeches were made by each group, with Copagri’s President, Tommaso Battista stating: “The purely ideological intervention on hemp envisaged in the so-called ‘Security Bill’ risks irreparably cutting the legs off an innovative and fast-growing sector…”
This was echoed by Canapa Sativa Italia’s Mattia Cusani, who continued: “For us this is an existential battle, and we are here because we are convinced that we cannot lose today. The challenge is to overcome ideological prejudices about the crop, because the whole industrial hemp sector is at stake here.”
Union Protest
At the same time, a protest organised by The Italian General Confederation of Labour (CGIL), Italy’s oldest trade union representing over 5m members, took place outside the Brindisi Prefecture governmental office.
Protesters, which included representatives from political parties such as Più Europa, PD, M5S and Alleanza Verdi e Sinistra, adopted the slogan ‘We are not illegal, we are work, environment, agriculture, innovation and research.’
CGIL’s General Secretary, Antonio Macchia, said that the Security Bill not only threatened to expose Italy to EU sanctions as it ‘ignores the law of the European Court of Justice’, but would also do ‘very serious damage’ to the agricultural and commercial hemp sector, causing ‘devastating economic and legal consequences.’
