Citizens will be able to grow cannabis plants at home, carry the drug with them and to buy it legally according to a bill being presented in Italy's parliament on Monday.
Citizens can cultivate a maximum of five cannabis plants at home, keep up to 15 grammes there and carry five grammes with them but are forbidden from selling or exporting what they grow, under the bill.
Cannabis growers will however be allowed to form social clubs of up to 50 members, where they can swap and share their produce under the proposals.
Cannabis will be on sale in state-licensed stores and five percent of all revenues from these outlets will go towards the fight against Italy's illegal drugs trade, according to the bill.
Cannabis users will be banned from driving while high and from smoking the weed in public places including parks, the bill stipulates.
The bill is fiercely opposed by health minister Beatrice Lorenzin and other conservative and Catholic politicians.
"Alcohol and drugs are a scourge. We say no to legalising cannabis and to all substance-dependence," Lorenzin tweeted on Sunday.
Legal cannabis sales would bring the debt-laden Italian state 5.5 to 8.5 billion euros annually (between 1.23 percent and 2.34 percent of gross domestic product), research suggests.
Supporters of the bill argue its provisions will strike a blow to the illegal cannabis market, valued by studies at 30 billion euros annually, most of which ends up in mafia coffers.
Moreover, recreational use of cannabis is extremely popular in Italy especially among youth, and nearly three-quarters of people surveyed in an IPSOS poll were in favour of legalising the drug.
The bill was tabled by the inter-parliamentary group Legalise Cannabis and is backed by 220 members of the lower house of parliament and 73 senators.
Several European countries and various US states have legalised cannabis in recent years, both for medical and recreational use.
