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Italy: Court of Cassation Green-lights Ganja Flavio Haver Corriere della Sera: Italian Life Sunday 13 Jul 2008 ROME – Rastafarians use “marijuana not just as a medicinal herb but also as a meditative herb. As such, it is a possible contributor to the mental and physical state appropriate to contemplation in prayer”. This is the key passage in the grounds for the ruling with which the sixth criminal section of the court of cassation quashed the conviction of Giuseppe Guaglione, sentenced in December 2004 to sixteen months in prison for illegal possession for the purposes of distribution. Mr Guaglione was found asleep in his car in a lay-by by police with just under 100 grams of marijuana, enough for about seventy joints. He appealed to the supreme court, claiming that the appeal court judges had failed to take into account that he is a Rastafarian and that smoking marijuana is one of the tenets of his Judaism-based religion, which permits the use of up to ten grams a day. The court of cassation upheld his appeal in a ruling that has been heavily criticised by the Centre-right and the ministry of the interior. The order that assigns to the Florence court of appeal the task of re-examining the case stresses the need to be tolerant with Rastafarians found in possession of substantial quantities of drugs. They use marijuana, points out the ruling, “in commemoration, in the belief that the sacred herb grew on the grave of King Solomon, called the Wise King, and they draw strength from it”. The Perugia court of appeal was swift to condemn the decision. “The judges do not appear to have carried out a logical reconstruction of the incident in relation to the behaviour of the accused (it was Guaglione himself who spontaneously handed over to the carabinieri a bag containing the marijuana, which was loose and not packaged in doses), pointing out that the substance was intended for his own personal use, according to the practices of the Rastafarian religion, of which he claimed to be an adherent”. According to the court of cassation, the decision was not to be taken on the basis of a “simplistic reference to the weight of substance involved, ignoring any evaluation of the time and place, or the behaviour of the accused”. In late April, the court of cassation reacted to the softer line taken in other verdicts when the supreme court’s united sections confirmed that growing marijuana at home was an offence. Now comes this new ruling. Isabella Bertolini from the People of Freedom (PDL) called the supreme court’s decision “cock-eyed lawmaking” while the ministry of the interior’s anti-drug policy department noted that the ruling “overturns legislation currently in force, which prohibits and penally sanctions the distribution to third parties, for whatever purpose, of any amount, however small, of any narcotic substance”. The leader of the PDL group in the senate, Maurizio Gasparri, also disapproves: “This sentence is from another age. Someone has to stop these judges. They do not live in the real world”. For Roberto Cota, the Northern League group leader in the chamber of deputies, “the sentence has aberrant effects”. In contrast, Francesco Piobbichi, social policy spokesman for the Communist Refoundation Party (PRC), claims that it opens up “interesting scenarios” and “sweeps aside the demagogy of an authoritarian Right”. Provocatively, Christian Democrat (UDC) deputy Luca Volontè claims that Rastas could “be used to deal drugs” but Fr Andrea Gallo, founder of the San Benedetto rehabilitation community in Genoa, applauds the ruling. “You can’t continue to demonise a substance. The principle of self-determination must be respected and now the supreme court has realised that stigmatising a substance as such is not the way forward. We need to clamp down on abuse, not use”. http://www.corriere.it/english/articoli/2008/07_Luglio/11/rastafarians.shtml
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