Cassation: Cultivation of cannabis for personal use is not a crime
Even if according to the joint criminal sections of the Court of Cassation, cultivation for personal use, if it follows certain rules, cannot be considered a crime, this does not mean that from today it is legal to grow cannabis in Italy . At a legislative level, nothing has changed: the Court of Cassation has only given an indication of principle and there is only one way in which legal cultivation can be achieved: politics must stop shirking its responsibilities and make a law that establishes it.
Having clarified the point, in the reasons for the December sentence the judges expressed themselves as follows: "The crime of cultivation of narcotics can be configured independently of the quantity of active ingredient that can be obtained immediately, the conformity of the plant to the expected botanical type and its aptitude, also due to the cultivation methods, to reach maturity and produce narcotic substance being sufficient; however, cultivation activities of minimal dimensions carried out at home must be considered excluded , as they do not fall within the scope of application of the criminal law, which due to the rudimentary techniques used, the small number of plants, the very modest quantity of product that can be obtained, the lack of further indications of their inclusion in the narcotics market, appear to be intended exclusively for the personal use of the grower".
This is the heart of the matter and of the ruling published today by the United Criminal Sections of the Court of Cassation, which refers to the December proceedings. The first comment by lawyer Bulleri was instead: “The criterion of “rudimentality” is reiterated and taken as a criterion for qualifying criminally relevant conduct. But be careful not to confuse rudimentary with legal” . In fact, the ruling reiterates the “minimum dimensions” and “rudimentary techniques” in the cultivation of cannabis so that it does not constitute a crime.
In any case, the ruling states that according to the judges, the provisions of the consolidated law on narcotics do not apply to “domestic cultivation for personal consumption ” because “this provision does not refer in any case to cultivation, not even to that which is criminally relevant”. In the event that, the Court of Cassation continues, “domestic cultivation for the purpose of personal consumption actually produces a narcotic substance with drugging efficacy, administrative sanctions may be applied to the acting subject considered not as a cultivator, but as the holder of a substance intended for personal use”.
A concept that is reiterated as follows: "domestic cultivation for personal consumption, due to lack of typicality, as well as industrial cultivation that, at the end of the complete development process of the plants, does not produce a narcotic substance due to lack of offensiveness in concrete terms, must be considered legal". While " possession of a narcotic substance exclusively intended for personal consumption, even if obtained through criminally legal domestic cultivation, remains subject to the administrative sanction regime".
