ABSTRACT: A debate on drugs has begun on the pages of IL MESSAGGERO (1a) following the publication of a letter by Marco Pannella (Text n.1071) inspired by the arrest of 17 students accused of smoking hashish, in which the author maintains the necessity to depenalize "non-drugs".

(IL MESSAGGERO, January 21, 1973)

(This is the third part of the debate opened by Marco Pannella's letter on marijuana and the arrests of young people. In his letter, the Radical exponent maintained (summarizing the contents for our readers) that the hunt for marijuana smokers among the students is a persecution, insofar as smoking marijuana is not a crime, but a harmless act which is repressed on the basis of a law which everyone acknowledges to be absurd (but a new, even worse one is being prepared), and announced his intention to smoke hashish publicly as an act of protest. Among the letters criticizing Pannella, of particular interest are those by Prof. Rocci and by a reader, a Mr Anania, which some of today's letters refer to. Owing perhaps to a natural alternation of opinions, no further letters by opponents had reached us yesterday; we invite our readers to overcome their laziness and to express their opinion, because we meant to open a debate which would cease to be such were it one-sided. A few suggestions: the letters we receive a

re much too lengthy, and we invite you all to follow the example of Ruggero Orlando, whose commentary is clear and concise. Also, we inform you that we will not publish anonymous letters. Whether our readers explicitly request it or not, we will omit certain signatures on our own initiative; however, all letters by readers who write without having the courage to specify their identity will be discarded. The problem is a serious one; it is manifold, and therefore calls for a serious and responsible discussion.)

The American experience of Ruggero Orlando

"I share the sense of urgency expressed by Marco Pannella as regards the necessity to create new laws on drugs.

I spent 18 years in the U.S. Couldn't Italy learn something from the tragic experiences in other countries?

Marijuana or hashish, both cannabis derivatives, do not cause addiction, and are not particularly dangerous. They are simply not to be recommended, especially for people who drive. Prohibition and all-out wars against such substances literally leads scores of youngsters to establish contacts with clandestine speculators, and therefore also with opium derivatives (morphine and heroin), which destroy the brain and life. The speculators' profit for these hard drugs is much greater compared to marijuana traffic: it is in their interest to see that their clients get addicted. Today this is a major tragedy in the U.S., which is caused by fanatic officials and policemen, who act indiscriminately on the basis of protectionist principles. Those sociologists and psychiatrists who have investigated the U.S. precedents fear an epidemic and uncontainable explosion of morphine and heroin addiction in Italy".

Ruggero Orlandi (Chamber of Deputies)

Polemic with reader Anania

"Those who have not lost their sense of the State and of its institutional functions must defend society from 'cannabis addicts'", says Vito Anania, school teacher, professor of law, and therefore of morals. And who are these "cannabis addicts"? "Hashish addicts", says Anania. "Those who make such a chronic and excessive use of cannabis preparations ('kif' in Morocco) as to have physical and psychic damage from it", says psychiatrist A. Benabud, one of most fierce opponents of cannabis. Benabud found a few hundred cannabis addicts in the whole of Morocco, where kif is smoked by millions of people (Cf. A. Benabud. "Psychopathological Aspects of the Cannabis Situation in Morocco"). It would be interesting to ask Anania to bring a few Italian "cannabis addicts" to the offices of "Il Messaggero", providing he can find them: Italian physicians have been waiting for forty years to see one.

"In Anania's amusing letter, we learn that the harmfulness of hashish is a 'fact', since there is a penal law which prohibits its consumption. It might be useful to remind Anania of the fact that in 1500 a penal law prohibited tobacco consumption, or that in the '30s a number of penal laws prohibited the constitution of political parties, or that in some U.S. states a penal law sentences married couples indulging in cunnilingus to several years of imprisonment; even more interesting would be to take a look at our friend's bookshelves, since he states he looked up recent texts on the subject.

The only text he quotes is "Come agiscono i farmaci sul corpo umano" (2) by Prof. Pietro Benigno (ERI, 1961), and in fact it is more recent than Marco Polo's "Milione", from which he might have picked up information about murderers who smoke or smokers who murder. On the basis of this text, which includes cannabis in the list of psychotropic substances, according to the obsolete and discredited Porot manual, our reader forms his concept of addiction-toxicomania: and, using all his imagination, he attributes it to hashish! The only point on which all pharmacologists agree is that cannabis does "not" cause addiction. "But a hashish addict", continues Anania (quoting Benigno, who referred such words to opium and hard drugs addicts) "is willing to commit any mean action in order to obtain his drug, which has become indispensable for his life".

Should we quote Maure, Vogel, Chopra, Murphy and many others, when they state that, on the basis of statistic researches, there is no link between crime and use of marijuana, on the contrary...it has been remarked that one the most visible effects of such drugs is to induce a feeling of peace, plunging the subject into an ecstasy so deep that all tendency to violence, which can instead be noticed in alcohol intoxications, vanishes? No, because we would only be further traumatized by our reader, who insists: "where and how do these people get the money which they increasingly need to smoke cannabis"? All we can do is simply update Anania on current prices (L.500 for a couple of joints, L.6000 for a kilo of kif in Morocco), sincerely hoping that this last information will not create a problem of conscience in him, tempting him to overcome the "false fears" of hashish, to reach that pleasure which is implicitly hidden in an excessively feared object".

Livio Moretti

Medical student

Alcohol is more harmful than cannabis

"It seems to me that is incorrect both from a scientific and medical point of view to compare cannabis derivatives and their possible damages with alcohol or tobacco", states Prof. Franco Rocci, President of the International Movement for the Defence of the Family Institution". He also says that "as far as drugs are concerned, the passage to the use of harder substances from softer substances is almost fatal..."

Since Prof. Rocci omits to quote the sources at the basis of such conclusions, maybe these do not deserve a specification which we consider nonetheless necessary, as we want to avoid people from thinking that the presidents of associations for the defence of the family are experts in the field of "drugs": as far as the problem of the escalation from marijuana to hard drugs is concerned, the following researches are available:

Anglo-Indian National Commission for the study of cannabis abuse (Indian Hemp Drugs Commission) 1893-94: three years of research, with a final report in 7 volumes.

Committee appointed the Government of the Panama Canal Area: Cf. The Military Surgeon, November 1983. Commission appointed by the Mayor of New York, Fiorello La Guardia: The problem of marijuana in the city of New York, edited by the New York Academy of Medicine, 1944. Congress of the Annual Parliamentary Commission on narcotics abuse (White House Conference on Narcotics and Drug Abuse), 1962.

National inter-disciplinary research commission appointed by the British House of Commons and presided by Baroness Wotton (Official Report House of Commons: "Wotton Report", 1968.

National research commission appointed by the Canadian Government: The Interim Report on non-medical drug use (Le Dain Report), 1970.

Interparliamentary National Commissions on the problem of Marijuana of the Australian (1971) and Dutch Government (1972).

United States: National Commission on marijuana and drug abuse (Marijuana: a Signal of misunderstanding) appointed by President Nixon, 1972.

New York Academy of Science, 1972: Research on the role of cannabis in the passage to harder drugs.

This is just a list of collective and official researches: it would have been too lengthy to quote the most important scientific researches conducted by private "pools" and the comparative studies of the different researchers: all these researches agree in considering any whatsoever role of cannabis or hashish in the formation of opium or other hards drugs addictions as "non-existant".

"All" these researches discussed the possible comparison between marijuana and alcohol, and agreed that the toxicity of marijuana is "inferior" to that of alcohol, also in relation to psychic damage, which is ascertained for alcohol and is absolutely not ascertained or non-existant for marijuana. Persons interested in more detailed or extensive information on these researches can write to "Stampa alternativa", casella postale 741, Roma.

Stampa alternativa, information centre.

A German reader expresses her congratulations

"I read a letter signed by Marco Pannella on Il Messaggero of January 16, 1973. In the letter he states his intention to smoke hashish publicly in a Roman square.

I wish to congratulate Mr Pannella for his courage, but also for the decision to publish such statement.

This puts an end to the Medieval attitude held by most if not by all Italian newspapers of hunting for witches where there are clearly none.

The scientific reports of famous professors have confirmed the harmlessness of hashish, provided, of course, that it is used with moderation (we all know what can happen when we drink too much alcohol or coffee, or take 3 tranquillizers a day, as I have seen many people do here in Rome). I wonder at the fact that such people do not realize (or don't want to realize) that they are practically "public enemies".

At any rate, if Mr Pannella smokes hashish publicly, I hope he will be joined by 1000, 2000, 3000 more people"

Gertrud Meyer

A converted hippie policeman

I am a hippie-policeman; I attended qualifying courses, I let ny hair grow, and I spent a whole year living with Italian hippies.

For the whole of the first period I did nothing, I just looked around and learnt a lot about what they were doing, how they talked, what the girls were like...I was part of the group, and I decided to try drugs so that they would trust me. Then, after a while, I realized that by smoking I could understood them much better, I could understand their feelings, their life-style, their music. I still believe we need to restrain the spread of drugs. But whereas once I was happy when one of them got arrested, now it distresses me. One of them told me: there is love in you too; he's in prison, and when he comes out, in a a couple of years, he'll be a human wreck.

I can't stand it any longer, so I'm writing to you: a hippie told me there was a sergeant in the States, they used to call him Sergeant Sunshine, because once he had attended a trial and had started to smoke and had himself arrested; he told the judges it was all a mistake, a fraud, that marijuana wasn't harmful.

If they arrest Pannella when he smokes out of protest I'll get arrested too.

Signed letter

Translator's notes

(1a) Il Messaggero: major Italian daily newspaper founded in 1878.

(2) How drugs act on tthe human body.