Cannabis illegal in Italy, Salvini’s last crusade!
The latest “salvinian cannonball” on making cannabis illegal in Italy has obviously been source of controversy. Sometimes battles are fought for ideals, rights and for peace but not for bullshit. Right when we were on the right track for legalization and acceptance of this incredible expression of nature, voila, here comes the axe.
How can we be so culturally backward in such an incredibly evident way? Come on, no kidding, Salvini is the Minister of the Interior in a nation like Italy, how can he waste so much time and talks this way? Making cannabis illegal in Italy is a lost battle given that the world is changing its approach on this precise matter.
Salvini has repeatedly shared the idea of being against lobbies and multinational companies cannibalising small and medium businesses, therefore he should be aware that exactly the same lobbies banned cannabis almost a century ago. The large industry and the finance sector gave themselves the monopoly on everything, contributing to the elimination of the plant as it was threatening their huge interests.
We already talked about this topic in this post, of how the powerful people of the early past century banned cannabis, then why are we going back? Making cannabis illegal in Italy and in the rest of the world has been a crime against the people who grew it and got their income from it. It seems impossible that even today we are still talking about this plant as if it was an alien coming from another planet. Salvini please put your mind at ease: cannabis was here before you and it has been an incredible plant for humankind, not only to smoke but also to use in different ways.
Making cannabis illegal in Italy contributes to crime!
This is the reality: thanks to the opening of cannabis shops across the country, organized crime has lost something like 100 million euro. It’s not peanuts, and let’s not forget that we are only at the beginning, because actually the large distribution is yet to start, if Salvini allows. However, someone should explain that making cannabis illegal in Italy does not lead to any positive results, but rather the opposite.
The recent study signed by Vincenzo Carrieri of the university Università Magna Graecia Catanzaro confirms this tendency. With the spreading of cannabis shops the legal sale of cannabis has resulted in a decline in the seizure of illegal dealing by 14%.
This means that when smokers are given the chance to choose between legal and illegal cannabis they do not risk, and they buy in cannabis shops. This is only one of the many positive effects that are obviously real and not fantasy. The comforting consequence is that illegal cannabis does not pay taxes while the legal one does.
Apparently Salvini would rather have illegal drug dealers selling cannabis (given that he won’t be able to eradicate the issue anyway) than allowing stores with tills to sell it. Needless to say, that some logical thinking would definitely go for the legalising option and for the authorised distribution of cannabis. Maybe someone should show Minister Salvini some data just to see what he would say!
Let people, not the single person, choose
In view of human self-determination, which is a fundamental right, citizens are the ones who should make decisions. Apparently, people already chose and in multiple occasions even in the Parliament, they have always voted in favour. Italians, including non-smokers, have never liked illegal cannabis.
Awareness and reasoning want that freedom of choice applies on this topic as well, giving people the freedom to use cannabis legally. The general public has chosen, and it has done so on the basis of principles of legality and by asking themselves questions on the benefits of cannabis that have already been proven. Of course, it’s not going to end here but we are sure that the outcome is obvious: cannabis will be legalised, and we will still see it in the shops.
Maybe Salvini has his reasons to be against cannabis, but his problem is easily solvable by just not smoking it! However, as a Minister, breaking the balls of millions of people who have no fear of cannabis and who reap its benefits instead, is a little bit excessive. There are cases of consumption for therapeutic purposes; shall we forbid it to those people in need too?
If he claims that it is ok for cannabis to be used for medical purposes, but he is still fighting to make it illegal, let’s expect a herd of sick people queuing for analgesic cannabis in the future! We are in the middle of a grotesque joke, and let’s be honest, there are more urgent issues in Italy! Apparently not only is the government quiet on some topics but it also avoids talking about them and it clutches at straws using marijuana as an excuse. Oh please!
Cannabis is the people’s freedom claim
The biggest problem of this plant is its own nature, as everyone can grow it and produce a lot of things from it: clothes, food, medicines and fuel, basically everything. According to Salvini illegal cannabis in Italy creates disorder and a society in disarray, which are the motives of his battle. Actually, it produces exactly the opposite: as we have seen, legal cannabis fights the affairs of criminality, produces wealth and fiscal returns. Also, if creates jobs, entrepreneurial opportunities and diffused local wealth, you know why? Because the plant is natural and not patentable therefore everyone has the right to do whatever he wants with it.
Can you understand where the problem lies? The position of the Minister Salvini should emerge from this simple equation. Illegal cannabis in Italy is certainly not a battle for public order or legality, because if we think about its cannabis shops have contributed to the fight against illegal drug-dealing more than institutions and police have done so far. This should now be clear, and we would need someone to explain it to the Minister, maybe by having him taking two puffs of a joint that never hurt anybody!