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by Tiziana Maiolo

Il Manifesto 25.9.1991

The question of the eighth referendum, the one requesting the partial abrogation of the Vassalli-Jervolino bill, outlines a serious and extremely beneficial turnabout with respect to the drug policy. It is no cure-all that can solve everything, but at least a different direction compared to the failure of a law whose effects - overcrowded prisons, casualties, spread of disease and suicides - are under the eyes of all, while the drug traffic continues to prosper and flourish undisturbed. First of all, the referendum question proposed by the Cora (Radical Anti-Prohibitionist Coordination) means to do away with that juridical monstrosity represented by the bill's manifesto. In other words, that article 72 which, while punishing a given behaviour - "personal use of narcotic or psychotropic substances" - with a penalty, forbids it a priori. Abrogating this principle involves no practical consequences, except that of eliminating deadwood of ethical more than juridical nature. The basis of the question which citize

ns will be called to decide upon (provided the Constitutional Court accepts the referendum) is the non-criminalization of the consumer of narcotic substances. The referendum in fact requests the abrogation of the entire article 76 of the bill, which establishes the intervention of penal sanctions against persons who make personal use of drugs. This part of the referendum advocates a real cultural change underlining the acceptance of a principle of freedom - the freedom of choice of one's behaviours. The change also implies the abolition of the "daily average dose", laid down by article 75. A concept which has already been disavowed by the sentence of the Constitutional Court and by the Martelli decree of last summer. However, it is important to separate those who consume from those who deal not on the basis of the quantity of substance possessed, but on the existence or not of the intention to sell the substance to others, as it is the profit, not the substance, that qualifies a dealer as such. Abrogating th

ese articles also means taking a distance from the ambiguities of the bill which preceded the Vassalli-Jervolino bill, that of 1975. Such bill punished consumption indiscriminately, with an exception for persons possessing a "moderate quantity" (at the discretion of the magistrate) of substance. While eliminating the penal sanctions, the referendum nonetheless leaves a problem open. Assuming drugs remains an administrative offence. There is an obstacle which not even the most libertarian of referendums could overcome without violating Parliament's ratification in 1990 of the U.N. Convention of Vienna of 1988. International treaties override ordinary laws, and as such cannot be abrogated through a referendum.

The other points submitted to referendum concern the freedom of the physicians. The minister is deprived of the possibility of replacing the physician in deciding the treatment, by indicating (art.2) the substitute drugs. A decree such as the one with which Minister De Lorenzo in practice prevented the administration of methadone will no longer be possible. Lastly, the cancellation of articles 120 and 121 will abolish the regulations that force the family doctor who learns of the state of drug addiction of the patient to inform the public service of this, thus forcing a person who has not chosen him to be "cured".