Italy to get enough signatures to trigger referendum on legal marijuana

Is it possible for legal cannabis advocates in Italy to garner enough signatures on Saturday to trigger a referendum on Liberalizing The Use of Cannabis, setting the stage for a nationwide vote on the issue early next year?

The referendum proposal seeks to legalise the growing of marijuana for personal use and ease sanctions on other cannabis related crimes, with offenders no longer risking prison sentences for selling small amounts of the drug.

Organisers of the petition gathered the required 500,000 signatures in seven days, far faster than usual because of a law approved in July which allows signatures to be collected online. Before in person signing was only allowed.

It is an extraordinary result but not surprising, said the referendum organiser committee, which is made up of a raft of pro-weed advocacy groups.

The speed of the support shows the desire for change on cannabis, the committee added in a statement.

The signatures will now need to be authenticated, and the organisers called on people to add their names before the deadline for September 15 to avoid any risk of the referendum being rejected if some of them are still invalid.

Antonella Soldo, from the Better Legal Cannabis Pressure Group, said almost half of the signingatories were between 16 and 24.

In Italy, the registration of referendums has been made much easier by the new online law.

Efforts to legalise euthanasia have already led to a push by popular vote to legalise the vaginal euthanasia.

The main political parties in Mario Draghi's national unity government are divided over marijuana.

The Five Star Movement favours liberalisation, which is staunchly opposed by the right-wing League and Brothers of Italy. The Centre-left Democratic Party takes a strictly independent, non-committal line and generally adopts a cautious yet effective line.

Pro-weed groups received a boost in 2019 when Italy's top appeals court ruled that growing cannabis for personal use was legal, but that verdict has not yet been reflected in new legislation, leaving the issue unclear.