Italy’s Constitutional Court will not rule this month on the ban on selling hemp flower. The review of Article 18 of the so-called security decree, scheduled for 21 October, has been moved to 9 February 2027 so the Court can decide the three questions raised by the courts of Brindisi, Trani and Brescia together. In the meantime, the ban remains in force.
What Article 18 prohibits
The rule came in with Decree-Law 48/2025, later converted into Law 80/2025. Since then it has banned the import, processing, distribution and sale of hemp inflorescences, as well as products containing them and their extracts, resins and oils. In practice it pushed the so-called cannabis light business outside the law in Italy, where it had grown into a network of shops, distributors and industrial hemp farms.
The postponement is about the calendar, not the substance. The Court set a session on 25 January 2027 to decide on admitting parties that want to intervene, and on 9 February it will examine the three questions together. Both Sacrapianta and Newsweed report this and agree that the delay says nothing about how the Court will rule.
The arguments against the ban
The first case to reach the Court was a December 2025 order by a preliminary investigations judge in Brindisi. It raises three objections:
- Use of a decree-law. The Constitution reserves this route for extraordinary cases of necessity and urgency, and the measure had been going through Parliament as an ordinary bill since September 2024.
- Harm principle. According to the judge, there is no scientific basis showing that flowers with THC within reference thresholds are dangerous.
- Free movement in the EU. A total ban could restrict trade between Member States without proportionate justification, contrary to the CJEU’s 2020 Kanavape ruling.
Brescia added its own question in July 2026, published in the Gazzetta Ufficiale on 16 September.
Courts are already narrowing the rule
Before the Constitutional Court speaks, Italy’s Supreme Court has reduced the ban’s practical reach. Court of Cassation ruling 25539/2026, filed on 8 July, holds that Article 18 does not automatically turn a flower into a narcotic: prosecutors must prove its actual psychoactive effect with technical data. It is neither a general acquittal nor legalisation, but since then several courts have ordered seized goods returned when tests failed to show that effect. There is also a case pending before the EU Court of Justice, C-716/25, on industrial hemp and the free movement of leaves, flowers and derivatives.
What it means for business
Four more months of uncertainty in one of Europe’s largest hemp markets has concrete consequences for growers, distributors and exporters, including Spanish ones:
- Selling flower in Italy remains illegal until the Court decides; the criminal and seizure risk has not gone away.
- Analytical documentation for every batch (THC, chain of custody) is currently the best defence in any proceedings.
- Extract and derivative lines that rely on flower as raw material are also caught by Article 18.
- February 2027 and the CJEU ruling will decide whether Italy becomes a viable market again or the ban becomes entrenched.
From the Constitutional Court to Bilbao
The Italian ruling will land just a month before Spannabis B2B Bilbao 2027, held on 11 March in the VIP Hall at BEC. It will be a good moment to gauge its impact with distributors, lawyers and investors in the same room. If your company works with hemp or with the Italian market, you can book your B2B table and set up meetings with the people already adjusting their plans for 2027.