Saviano steps up for marijuana

(ANSA) - Rome, July 25 - 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.