Source: Life in Italy
June 28, 2011
Rome – Italy’s top court ruled Tuesday
that citizens may grow marijuana on their home balconies and
terraces.
Such an amount “could cause no harm,” said the Cassation
Court.
Citing this rationale, the supreme justices rejected an
appeal filed by prosecutors from the Catanzaro Court of Appeals
contesting the not-guilty verdict of a 23-year-old charged for
keeping a cannabis plant in a small vase on his home balcony in
the town of Scalea in Calabria.
The plant had the potential to produce 16mg of the
marijuana drug.
Tuesday’s verdict signals a new chapter at the Cassation
Court, where previously narcotics cultivation always required a
punishment, even minuscule amounts.
The court caused a flap in 2009 when it said it was okay to
grow marijuana as long as people didn’t let it get big enough to
harvest the drug, ordering police to step in only if there was a
concrete threat.
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