CBD will remain off Italian drug lists for now, after a regional court temporarily suspended a government decree that blocked the sale of products taken internally.
The decree, which took effect Aug. 5, designated CBD a narcotic, raising the specter of devastation for supply chains that make and sell CBD-based products in the dietary supplements and herbal medicine sectors – and possibly cosmetics.
But the Regional Administrative Tribunal of Lazio – which has made rulings supporting the hemp sector in the past – stepped in to pause the decree.
CBD ruling
While that’s a skirmish won, broader restrictions still loom over the Italian CBD sector in a proposed amendment that would shut down the trade in hemp flowers altogether – effectively banning the source of CBD.
As the first debates on the amendment started this week, hemp stakeholders marshaled their forces in opposition to the measure, which would become part of the country’s 2023 Security Law, a sweeping measure that strengthens police agency powers and creates harsh criminal penalties for violators.
Three parties, trade group Canapa Sativa Italia, and two companies, Giantec Srl and Società Biochimica Galloppa Srl, brought the legal action against the government’s decree on CBD. The court ruling temporarily blocking the decree came Tuesday, Sept. 10.
The plaintiffs’ legal case challenged the lack of scientific evidence put forward by the government, saying such tight restrictions on producing, handling and distributing hemp-derived CBD products were not justified.
Meloni’s determination
The industry is fighting back against an aggressive campaign under the conservative government of Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, who seems determined to wipe out EU-legal CBD and other cannabinoids as well as hemp flowers in Italy. She is calling for an out-and-out ban on hemp flowers and cannabinoids, and strict control over what the government mistakenly considers to be “psychoactive” substances.
The government has also said it intends to prevent hemp from being used as a cover for the illegal marijuana market in Italy and will encourage strict enforcement of all cannabis laws.
In a legally binding decision applicable across the EU, the European Commission declared in 2020 that CBD is not a narcotic and may be legally traded in and among member states; raw hemp flowers may also be traded if they are under the EU THC limit of 0.3% or less. The ruling was based on a celebrated European Union Court of Justice finding made earlier in the same year.
Farm groups push back
At a press conference this week, leading hemp and farm groups pushed for lawmakers to vote against the amendment that would ban hemp flowers.
“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,” said Mattia Cusani of Canapa Sativa Italia.
Tommaso Battista, president of the Copagri farming association, said, “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.”
In addition to Copagri and Canapa Sativa Italia, the hemp association Federcanapa and the farming confederation CIA-Agricoltori Italiani were present for the press event.
Union weighs in
Union and political representatives demonstrated against the hemp amendment jointly at a separate event this week organized by the Italian General Confederation of Labour (CGIL), Italy’s oldest trade union representing more than 5 million members. On hand at that event, staged outside the Brindisi Prefecture governmental office were representatives from left-leaning political parties such as Più Europa, PD, M5S and Alleanza Verdi e Sinistra’.
CGIL’s General Secretary, Antonio Macchia, said that the hemp amendment to the Security Law would cause “devastating economic and legal consequences” for hemp producers, while at the same time exposing Italy to EU sanctions because it ignores a ruling of the European Court of Justice.
Hemp flowers have come under attack in Italy since at least early 2022, when the State-Regions Conference – a platform for cooperation among central and regional governments – updated language in a 2018 decree to classify hemp as strictly a medicinal plant. Four cannabis associations filed suit, and the decree was annulled one year later by the same Lazio Tribunal that ruled on this week’s case.