Following multiple unsuccessful attempts to destroy the industry, in April 2025 the Italian government invoked emergency constitutional powers, bypassing parliament, to reclassify hemp that is not intoxicating as a narcotic regardless of its THC content.
This law, which was implemented in June that year without any parliamentary discussion and with no transition period was a disaster for the Italian economy. It affected a direct employment of 15,000 workers, but also a huge sector of hundreds of millions per year.
An industry already in a state of fear was given a further kick by imposing a secondary CBD oil ban. Italian hemp industry associations and lawyers from around the world rushed to present their case at the European Commission.
EC did examine the complaints. However, no formal proceedings were opened. Italy’s own court was required to make the CJEU binding referral more than 17 month after the first alarm raised by the industry and 7 months after it had been already banned.
End 2025, Italy’s highest administrative tribunal, the Council of State referred a case to the EUCJ. It wanted to know if Giorgia’s Meloni government was in violation of EU law, and subsequently, if state governments were allowed to act and ban hemp. When the EUCJ responds to the Council of State, it will issue a ruling. It is not necessary to be able to understand Be binding
As we’ve seen across Europe, governments that are determined to suppress this non-intoxicating, legal product will do whatever it takes.
We are a team of professionals who will help you with your queries. ‘Hemp Wars’ We will explore the complexities and cases of European hemp law, along with some possible solutions to protect this industry.
In a legal context, a crop is legal
It is helpful to know what EU laws actually say about hemp in order to better understand the impact of Italy’s crackdown and those occurring throughout Europe.
According to EU law, cannabis sativa with THC levels of below 0.3% can be legally grown as an agricultural crop. It is grown by farmers across Europe for food, fibre, cosmetics, and construction material. These farmers can receive direct payments based on their area under the Common Agricultural Policy. Hemp is now regarded as a subsidised EU crop alongside barley, wheat and rapeseed.
It appears that the status of products derived from hemp, such as CBD extracts, oils, supplements and flowers, will be settled by the Court of Justice of the European Union in the Kanavape Case, C-663/18, in November 2020.
The court found that CBD was not classified as a narcotic and member states could not prohibit marketing CBD products that were produced legally in other member countries.
It was held, however, that such restrictions must be justified with clear and scientifically supported evidence of a genuine threat to the public’s health.
This ruling is still binding for all of the 27 members states. Kai-Friedrich Niermann is one of Europe’s top cannabis lawyers, and also a legal advisor to the European Industrial Hemp Association. MEDCAN24“The EU’s hemp framework is an absolute mess.”
This mess is not for the faint-hearted
Hemp farmers and traders in the EU are still facing bans, confiscations of assets, and other penalties, which often lead to their financial ruin and the closing of their business.
This gap has shown to be remarkably persistent and harmful across different countries and governments.
This nonsensical trend is best illustrated by Germany. It has the liberalest cannabis laws of any developed country. German hemp businesses have faced persistent enforcement problems under a domestic ‘intoxication clause’ requiring operators to demonstrate their products cannot be used for intoxicating purposes.
In 2020, the German Federal Court of Justice (Bundesgerichtshof) interpreted that this provision meant a person would theoretically be intoxicated by 15 grams of industrial hemp in one pastry. Hemp leaf-tea that was sold in supermarkets for years has now disappeared.
Niermann said that courts, especially, interpret the regulations regarding cannabis and hemp as a very prohibitionist fashion, which leaves little room to manoeuvre on the market.
READ MORE…
The same result with different strategies
The Kanavape decision was not a final ruling. This case addressed the legal issues raised by the French court referring the matter and set forth principles for national courts to adhere to. It did not, however, create any clear legislation on hemp.
Article 36 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, the EU’s derogation for public health (justification of restrictions), is still available to member states as long as they frame their actions in a proportionate response to real health risks.
Every attempt at limiting hemp is different. Italy used the precautionary principles. Ireland implemented the Narcotics Law of 1977. Greece proposed that hemp flowers be removed from the agricultural classification. However, the end result is almost always the exact same.
It isn’t new that the body of caselaw opposing hemp restrictions has not been limited to Italy. The governments of multiple countries and years have failed time after again to explain their restrictive policies to independent courts. There are a number of important rulings that we have listed below, however there are many other cases.
- CJEU, November 2020 — Kanavape, C-663/18 (France): EU highest court rules that CBD isn’t a drug, member states can’t impose blanket bans on CBD produced lawfully elsewhere in the Union and any restriction must be backed up by clear scientific evidence that a real risk to public health exists. Two French entrepreneurs were charged with criminal offenses for seven years after they sold a CBD vape made of legally-grown Czech hemp. In November 2021, the French Court of Appeal reversed their convictions.
- CJEU, October 2024 — Biohemp Concept, Romania: Romanian authorities rejected a request from a hemp firm to use hydroponic systems to cultivate industrial cannabis, claiming that the building did not meet the definition of agricultural land. The CJEU, asked to rule on the compatibility of the Romanian restriction with EU law, established a principle directly applicable to the broader crackdowns documented in this series: member states may only restrict hemp cultivation where such restrictions are proportionate and necessary to protect public health, cannot go beyond what is strictly necessary to achieve that objective, and must consider whether less restrictive alternatives — such as local controls — could achieve the same result. This proportionality standard is one that Italy, Ireland and Greece repeatedly have failed to achieve in their courts.
- Italy, February 2023 — TAR Lazio: The Regional Administrative Court of Italy has annulled the decree by the Health Ministry that restricted hemp use to only seeds and stems. It found the government to have failed to provide any evidence to support the claim.
- Italy, October 2023 — TAR Lazio: This same court, citing the lack of scientific proof and affirming that CBD was non-psychoactive again, suspended an oral CBD ban.
- Italy, September and October 2024 — TAR Lazio (twice): There were two more suspensions, citing a report of independent experts by Costantino Ciallella. He was the former director of La Sapienza University’s forensic medical department. This expert concluded that CBD did not have psychoactive or psychophysical effects.
- France, January 2022 — Council of State: On New Year’s Eve, 2021, the French government banned CBD flower sales. In less than 24 hours, the CBD industry began a legal battle. The ban was suspended by France’s top court less than 4 weeks after it had been imposed. It found “serious doubts about this prohibition because of its extreme nature” and concluded that the THC content of hemp leaves and flowers below 0.3% didn’t “present an amount of harm to health justifying a total prohibition.” The ban was only in place for a little over a month.
- UK, 2022 — Court of Appeal, Uncle Herb: The highest court in Britain upheld two hemp flower sellers who were accused of being drug dealers because they imported hemp that was compliant from Italy. The court confirmed hemp flower that is below the THC level should not be classified as a narcotic. The lawyer who analysed this ruling for MEDCAN24 asked: “Why do we use narcotics laws to ban a product which isn’t a narcotic?” The decision was made on EU law on free movement as it had been applied prior to Brexit. However, its application is limited directly for trading post 2020.
- Italy, March 2026 — Court of Cassation, Sassari: It was established by the Supreme Court in Italy that the presence of hemp flowers alone is not sufficient to be a criminal offense. It must have a real intoxicating effect.
- Italy, multiple courts, 2025-2026 — CSI Article 18 Observatory: Italian courts in 21 recorded cases, spanning prosecutor’s offices from Turin through to Catanzaro dismissed charges and released acquittals based on the principle that hemp flower, without any proven intoxicating properties, cannot be considered a controlled drug. Thirteen product returns are on record, with the most recent — 530kg of hemp inflorescences returned in Imperia — dated 8 April 2026.
- Germany, April 2026 — Amberg District Court: A Bavarian judge acquitted an accused who was carrying hemp industrial compliant with the law, and refused to adopt the Federal Court of Justice’s interpretation of this clause. According to the court, adults are now able to legally access THC-containing cannabis in social clubs as part of Germany’s Cannabis Act. Therefore, baking industrial hemp flower to induce intoxication was no longer rational.
- EU, October 2025 — SCCS preliminary opinion on CBD in cosmetics: France had proposed to the European Chemicals Agency that CBD be classified as a carcinogenic, mutagenic or reprotoxic substance — a designation that would have effectively banned it from cosmetics across the EU. EU-wide Scientific Committee on Consumer Safety rejected the reprotoxic label and found CBD to be safe in cosmetics at certain concentrations. The French attempt to limit through the backdoor of chemical classification had the exact opposite effect.
Change is coming.
The examples above paint a consistent but stark picture. In the EU, authorities continue to punish hemp-growing businesses that are perfectly legal. This is either because they misunderstand the crop or out of malice.
It also proves that these restrictions rarely pass scrutiny when they are put to the test in court. The toll on businesses and hemp industries is not shown.
Proving your legal status in court can be expensive and take a lot of time. The expense of proving your business’s legality in court is expensive and time-consuming.
It is also important to note that even when courts rule in favor of these businesses, it will be too late to help them save their businesses.
A number of reasons exist for optimism on the legislative front. In July 2025 the European Commission issued COM (2025) 553, a reform proposal for the Common Agricultural Policy, as part the Multiannual Framework 2028-2034.
The proposal seeks for the first time to explicitly authorise production and sale of hemp plants in all their parts across the EU. In September 2025 the European Parliament’s Agriculture Committee supported the inclusion of leaves, flowers and extracts in the list of legal agricultural products. It also called for the adoption of an EU-wide THC cap of 0.5%.
The Commission, if this legislation were to be implemented, would have all the necessary tools for pursuing infringement proceedings in court against any states that continue to maintain restrictions which are not compatible with the new Framework. In court, the industry could rely on a more positive legal basis than merely arguing that Kanavape is violated.
But it is unlikely that COM(2025) 553, which was approved by the European Parliament in December 2015, will become law until at least 2027. Trilogue discussions between the Commission and Parliament, with the Council voting on the final draft, are fraught with danger.
Niermann warns that, despite a more robust legislative framework, it may still not solve the issue: “When it concerns hemp and cannabis in Germany, they frequently invoke Article 36 TFEU to restrict the European Free Movement of Goods, citing protection for the health and life of their own citizens. Then, it would be necessary to challenge the law, which could lead one into a judicial loop.
Referrals from the Italian Council of State to CJEU may be expedited. A ruling in favour of the Italian industry, expected no earlier than late 2026, would be binding on all 27 member states and would give operators in Ireland, Greece and Germany an immediate basis to challenge domestic restrictions.
The next Hemp Wars will explore Ireland’s continued assault on CBD and hemp businesses.