This article opens a new series, focused on analyzing the situation of the cannabis plant in different countries around the world. Working as a manager for Green House Seed Company I had the chance of travelling to quite a number of destinations worldwide, and after many years of experiencing firsthand the ups and downs of many places, it is with great pleasure and pride that I am sharing this information with all Canamo readers. I will start my world-tour of selected cannabis places-of-interest with a country I know very well because that’s where I grew up. It’s a country I learned to love and hate, a place of intense emotions, big fun and lots of cannabis:
Italy.
In the next months I will report on more European countries (Spain, the UK and Holland), as well as Africa (Malawi, South Africa, Swaziland and Mauritius), and some of the Caribbean islands (Jamaica, Antigua, St Lucia, Barbados & St. Vincent).
The “Bel Paese†is a very diverse country, a long peninsula with different climates, different dialects, and a whole range of different culinary heritages. This diversity and richness of flavours is reflected in the cannabis culture as well. Italians are between the heaviest cannabis consumers in Europe, with some estimates counting up to 30% of the active population as having consumed cannabis more or less regularly over the last 12 months, and as much as 60% of youngsters aged 14 to 24 having tried cannabis at least once. Official government studies estimates 10% of Italians smoke pot on a regular basis (a percentage far higher than the Dutch), but this figure is, in my opinion, a serious downplay of the reality. In fact, cannabis is an integral part of Italian youth-culture, with a particularly spread cross-social presence: from the rich to the poor, from the elite to the masses, smoking pot is definitely one of the must-do rituals for most young Italians. And a good portion of young smokers keep the habit well into their 30s.
It’s easy to make the maths: more than 60 million people live in Italy, so at least 6 million Italians are regular pot smokers. If you assume each of them consumed one gram of pot per week (and that’s an extremely low estimate), that would make a national yearly consumption of roughly 320 tons of cannabis. The reality is that the annual national consumption is far higher. And that’s enough to label Italy as one of the top pot-consuming countries in the world.
At the same time, Italy is a very anti-cannabis country from a moral and political level. Italy is home to the Vatican and the Pope, the pulsing hearth of the Christian Catholic Church, one of the strongest anti-cannabis propaganda forces on the planet. Moreover the Italian government, now in the hands of conservative businessman-politician Silvio Berlusconi, is also a major force against cannabis. The current Italian legislation considers cannabis as a hard drug: consumption is a crime, dealing is a crime, growing is a crime. Even passing a joint to someone is a crime. Stiff penalties are in place even for first time offenders: passport and driver’s licence suspension and compulsory rehab are the norm for first-time drug offenders in Italy. Nevertheless, smoking weed and hash stays an integrant part in the life of many Italians, and the culture of growing plants for self-consumption is spreading at a fast pace, as people get tired of relying on organized crime to supply them with cannabis.
The cannabis market in Italy (import, distribution and sales) is largely in the hands of organized crime. The three major Italian criminal syndicates (mafia, camorra and ndrangheta, respectively operating in Sicily, the Naples area and Calabria), organize the import of hashish from Morocco and Asia, and weed from Albania. Some weed is produced on a commercial scale on Italian territory, mostly in Sicily and Calabria. These are the products available on the streets and piazzas of every Italian city, from Turin to Rome, and all the way down to Palermo. Hashish is the import of choice for most criminals, due to the fact that it is more profitable than weed: a container full of hashish fits much more kilograms than the same container full of weed. So, if it would be up to the organized crime families, Italians would probably just smoke hashish. But the reality of facts is seeing more and more Italian potheads travelling to Holland, Canada and the USA, and coming back to Italy with extensive knowledge on indoor cannabis growing techniques. As a result, the subculture of growing for personal use has seen a steep rise in the n umber of growers. Italian smokers proved over the last 10 years that they are sick and tired of relying on organized crime to supply them with low-quality commercial hashish. Instead, more and more smokers are realizing that it is necessary to grow weed in order to break the vicious circle of dependence from the organized crime. People dislike the fact that the profits from the sales of cannabis are used often to fuel other illegal activities that most people disapprove, such as hard drugs, prostitution and weapons trade.
Most Italians that grow cannabis start from seeds, and do not maintain a mother room. Crops are often small outdoor guerrilla operations in the South, where the climate is perfect for outdoor growing. In the North people tend to grow indoors, and usually they buy genetics from Dutch or Canadian seed banks. The average Italian grower starts with a few plants in his garden, or a single-light indoor cabinet. Few step up to guerrilla outdoor operations, or to larger indoor growrooms. Only in the last 5 years there has been a steep increase in the number of indoor and outdoor grow operations outside of the organized crime circles. Most of the equipment and seeds are available in a couple of hundred growshop spread all over the national territory, mostly in and around the largest cities. The sale of seeds is legal, under the “collector’s item†label. Grow equipment is also legal, and it is becoming a real industry. Most Italian distributors of seeds and equipment are importing products from Holland, Switzerland, Germany, Spain, USA and Canada. The globalization of the cannabis industry is a reality. Another visible effect of this process is the appearance in 2005 of the first Cannabis Expo in Pescia, Tuscany, later moved to Bologna for the next 2 editions. In 2008 a second expo has proven that the market is in full growth. Cannabis Tipo Forte and later Ave Maria are expressions of the desire of Italian cannabis users to unite and voice their opinion against a very intolerant and repressive government.
Italy is a country constantly worried with trend and fashion. This reflects into the cannabis culture as well: most Italian smokers like to change their strains regularly, switching between hash and weed depending on the time of day and situation. Most smokers still buy hashish from street dealers (mostly illegal immigrants from North Africa) and occasionally weed from friends who are growing. In big cities like Rome, Milan and Turin some growers are starting to make hashish as well, using pollinator and isolator techniques with knowledge and equipment imported from Holland. The strains that win prizes at cannabis events (Cannabis Cup and Champions Cup, plus a large number of local Italian harvest parties) are always very sought after, and usually their market price increases with popularity.
The standard market price for hashish on the streets of Italy is set by the same people that bring it in the country, and it is surprisingly stable, independently from inflation or economic crisis. Hashish costs always around 10 Euros per gram, while the price of weed changes according to the provenience and the strain. Italians prefer indoor weed, and are ready to pay top Euros for imported Dutch bud or high-grade local indoor (up to 15-20 Euros per gram in the most extreme cases). Outdoor Italian-produced weed costs around 10 Euros per gram, while Albanian import is in the 3 to 6 Euros per gram range. The economy of cannabis is relying on an ever-increasing demand (people start using cannabis at earlier age than they did 10 or 20 years ago) and the supply is carefully controlled to guarantee market stability. High finance principles are applied, and the cannabis market is far more stable than the real stock market.
The only real Italian cannabis landrace is known as Calabrese Rossa or Calabra Rossa, and it is a sativa-indica cross existing from the 1800s. Buds are long and pear-shaped, with a high calyx-to-leaf ratio and a distinctive red-brownish glow, due mostly to cold night temperatures of the Aspromonte mountain range, where it is grown. Over the last 25 years many Italians imported foreign genetics and spread them out all over the country, with the result that now it is quite hard to find Calabrese Rossa untouched by other genetics, in its pure landrace form.
Medicinal cannabis has had a very troubled history, due to the fact that only a small portion of the medical establishment recognizes the medicinal properties of the plant. Most doctors are politically bound to a conservative disapproval of the medicinal properties of cannabis, even if the scientific evidence points in a different direction. Various associations have taken the side of the sick and the weak, including the ACT (Association for Therapeutical Cannabis), the Pazienti Impazienti Cannabis (Association of cannabis patients), and the IACM (International Association for Cannabis as Medicine).
Aside from the recreational and medicinal cannabis, in Northern Italy there are large fields of low-thc hemp, a heritage of a past when the “Bel Paese†was the third world producer of hemp for fibre, after Russia and the USA.
Italy is a country that often leads the top tourist-destinations list of many tour operators, but it is still far from deserving a spot in the top-10 world cannabis destinations. For the cannabis-oriented traveller it can be a great holiday or a total disaster, depending on the place, the connections, and general luck.
Franco – Green House Seed Co.
This content is copyright of Green House Seed Co. © Green House Seed Co. All rights reserved. Any redistribution or reproduction of part or all of the contents in any form is prohibited other than the following:You may not, except with our express written permission, distribute or commercially exploit the content. Nor may you transmit it or store it in any other website or other form of electronic retrieval system.
Create an account or sign in to comment
You need to be a member in order to leave a comment
Create an account
Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!
Register a new accountSign in
Already have an account? Sign in here.
Sign In Now