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Giovanni Trovato and Carla Rossi 20th February 2026
This book is the final product of a national PRIN project, which also involved foreign researchers. A summary of the programme is included at the end of this preface.
The book is divided into four sections.
The first contains chapters summarising various cannabis legalisation projects around the world and two projects analysed in detail: the first chapter is a synthesis of the arguments linked to cannabis legalisation in general with references to the various countries that have legalised, two chapters relating to legalisation in Canada and the fourth chapter relating to legalisation in Germany.
The second section contains chapters explaining the risk factors for starting substance abuse in adolescence from psychological and socioeconomic factors in the first chapter. The other two chapters report analyses conducted on adolescents and socio-economic factors influencing the level use of psychotropic substances on the basis of data from surveys on school students, who are aged between 15 and 19, and on minors entering in a Community for therapy and help. 8 Preface
The third section regards the health of users of psychoactive substances, both adolescents and adults. The first chapter is related to the analysis of a dataset from the emergency department, the second one to comorbidity analysis of hospitalized subjects data set.
The last section contains two chapters on the repressive measures adopted by current policy and the effects of this approach. The first chapter deals with ineffectiveness of repressive policy and interventions and unexpected consequences and the last one on incarceration and corruption linked to repression.
Prior to this book, another book was published entitled ‘Regulation of narcotic substances, with particular regard to so-called soft drugs: interdisciplinary analysis and prospects for reform’ edited by the central coordinator of the project, Professor Antonio Cavaliere, a summary of which is provided below. “Project summary”: The project will begin with an analysis of the legitimacy and effectiveness of the current Italian legislation on psychotropic substances, with particular attention to so-called soft drugs (cannabis and its derivatives). This assessment will be conducted through an interdisciplinary research approach involving criminal and administrative law, criminology, social and health statistics, and economics. The analysis of legitimacy will address the theoretical compatibility of existing drug legislation with the constitutional principles of criminal law, with particular reference to the harm principle and the limits of paternalism. Legal research will also examine European Union law and relevant international conventions, with the aim of identifying the scope for reform at the national level. In addition, a comparative analysis will be carried out with other legal systems in Europe and beyond, especially in countries where the legalisation of cannabis is currently underway or has already been implemented. The assessment of the legitimacy of the law in force is closely linked to its effectiveness, which will be examined from both a criminological and an economic perspective. In particular, the project will investigate the social consequences of criminalisation, including the profits accruing to organised crime from control of the illegal drug market, the increase in incarceration rates among street-level dealers and consumers, the labelling of specific social groups as deviant, and the Preface 9 resulting burden on the criminal justice system and its loss of efficiency.
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