The floor of Lower House on Monday began debating a bill to legalise cannabis, as conservatives clashed with progressives over the ideology and the possible consequences of such a move.
"Legalizing it is not the same as promoting it," crusading anti-mafia writer and journalist Roberto Saviano said in a video message in favor of the bill during a press conference by its promoters.
The bill was
presented by Italian Left (SI), a splinter party from the ruling
center-left Democratic Party (PD) of Premier Matteo Renzi.
"Legalizing it means regulating it, and regulating it means
controlling it," Saviano said. This would wrest control of a
billion-euro market away from "the mafias and the terrorists",
Saviano pointed out.
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