Almost there: Italian activists collect enough signatures for the referendum on the legalization of marijuana

By Nicolas Jose Rodriguez

In 2021, Italian activists formally submitted to the Supreme Court more than half a million signatures collected for a referendum to legalize personal cultivation of marijuana and psychoactive mushrooms.

On Wednesday, Italian officials confirmed that activists had indeed collected enough signatures to put marijuana legalization on the ballot this spring, although there is one more procedural step before the measure can be officially presented to voters, Marijuana Moment reported.

Photo by Caleb Miller via Unsplash

If the Constitutional Court allows the referendum, voters are expected to decide on the policy change sometime between April 15 and June 15. Should the referendum go to the polls, a simple majority is required to put it into effect.

The proposal would eliminate prison terms for the production and personal use of cannabis.

In addition, the election referendum would also remove the ban on the cultivation of psychoactive substances in the country, although production and manufacture remain banned.

RELATED: Mamma Mia! Italy is on the verge of decriminalizing cannabis for adult use and home cultivation

Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi said at a press conference that the government would not take action against the admissibility of referendums. “The government could have created conditions in some cases to postpone filing to next year and has not done so,” Prime Minister Draghi added.

“We believe that the fact that we were able to collect over 500,000 signatures online in one week is taken as a strong call for an inappropriate set of bans to be removed from our books,” said Marco Perduca, president of the Marijuana Moment Referendum Committee.

This article originally appeared on Benzinga and has been republished with permission.