head in smoke

Of Claudio Risé

Source: Claudio Risé
A country with its head in smoke: This is one of the emergencies that the new government will have to face, without wasting too much time. On the consumption of cannabis and its derivatives, marijuana and hashish, Italy is at the top of the charts. His young people (dai 15 ai 34 years) they joint the 6% more than the European average; and this also leads to peaks in smoking and alcohol consumption. A sick youth appears, weak, insecure, scared. Anyone who works with teachers knows this well: Accompanying pupils on school trips is now at multiple risks, illnesses among children, complaints from hoteliers, accidents and unforeseen events of all kinds, not always without deaths, then told in the news. But adults don't joke either: here too we are at 32% against the 26% of EU average. Contrary to the slogan dear to the elites: “the joint does nothing” (and the psychedelic painter Matteo Guarnaccia already made a cartoon about it in the 1990s: “who knows how bored he is”), all this smoke leaves traces first and foremost in hospitals: il 15% of new users end up in treatment for panic attacks and out-of-control states. Also because people don't even know what they smoke: the THC level increased by more than 10% in 10 years. If there is a borderline situation, on the border between psychosis and “normality”, with a couple of joints it suddenly slips where it shouldn't (and “royalty”). Read More