As SanPa recounts, what began as a small, family-run farm soon grew into a self-contained town. It housed businesses, homes, a canteen and a hospital. Such growth was made possible by huge donations, but also by the unpaid labor of its scores of young drug users—many of whom tried to escape, only to be thwarted by community security.

In 1984 there were 500 guests; by 1986, 800. Within a few years of its foundation, Italian celebrities began to send their drug-using children to Muccioli’s community, rapidly increasing its popularity. 

Muccioli was a farmer and dog rancher with a passion for parapsychology, spiritualism, séances and natural medicine. He claimed to be a medium, and the reincarnation of Jesus Christ. 

In the ’70s and ’80s, Muccioli was beloved by ordinary Italians, who believed he was the only answer to rising rates of drug use and fatal overdose. His legacy later came under fire as brutal, unscientific and based on human exploitation.

A Legacy of Abuse

Muccioli used to refer to the community “an enlarged family,” said Paulo Severi, who stayed in San Patrignano from 1992 until 1996, when he was forced to leave after being convicted for a minor crime he had committed before entering. The scores of young drug users who populated San Patrignano were referred to as “guests” —though not all of them stayed willingly.

As early as 1983, five years after its inception, San Patrignano was rocked by the so-called “Chains Trial.” Muccioli was accused of kidnapping and mistreatment for having physically chained young people in the community as they went through substance withdrawal. Muccioli was eventually acquitted in 1990, but evidence mounted that the Chains Trial illuminated a cruel practice that had been implemented repeatedly, rather than just in that single case.

“The Chains Trial changed many things in San Patrignano,” Severi told Filter. “In 1993, one year after the moment I entered, physical violence had almost disappeared because the community was under the watchful eye of the national press 24/7.”

“Psychological violence, such as public punishments, were ordinary routine. I suffered them a lot.”

Yet it still persisted, as did psychological abuse. “I remember a girl and a boy being beaten [for] different silly reasons,” Severi said. “The boy, for example, was physically punished for using the toilet for an excessively long time. Episodes of psychological violence, such as public punishments, were ordinary routine, and I suffered them a lot. It was often subtle and underhand violence … because the Maranzano case was booming.” 

In 1989, community guest Roberto Maranzano was found dead near Naples, wrapped in a San Patrignano blanket. He had been reported missing after running away from the community. An autopsy showed that he had been beaten to death. In 1993, an audio tape emerged revealing that Muccioli had been aware of the crime from the beginning and had failed to notify police.

In the tape, Muccioli can be heard referring to another guest of the community who was threatening to reveal the facts, saying, “It would take an overdose … two grams of heroin and some strychnine … you have to operate with surgeon’s gloves. Or you’d have to shoot him with a dirty gun.”

The case raised a huge media interest in Muccioli and San Patrignano in 1993, and prompted other guests to report beatings and violence. During the trial, a former San Patrignano employee told the police that for years he had been in charge of finding and beating those who escaped from the community. As SanPa shows, mysterious suicides that took place during solitary confinement began to come to light. 

In 1994, Muccioli was sentenced to eight months imprisonment for aiding and abetting in Maranzano’s death. Maranzano’s son Giuseppe said, “My father was killed in the place that was supposed to save him.”

Powerful Connections

During Severi’s time there, San Patrignano was at the height of its notoriety in the media. “It was a big village, with more than 2,000 [drug users] who were employed for free in many different activities such as the laboratory, the butcher’s shop and the stable. At the head of the village was the guru, King Muccioli, who was revered by everyone.”

“Muccioli was ahead of his time,” Severi said. “He was already making a simple argument: ‘You’re a shitty junkie who has to be isolated, and you gotta thank those who give you even the smallest thing.’”

San Patrignano guests “had everything taken away from them,” he continued. “There was an iron discipline. Whoever made a mistake was shamed in public … Muccioli’s approach tended to replace dependence on drugs with dependence on the leader and his community.”

“There was this bizarre idea that people could be rehabilitated simply by having them work from morning to night.”

Muccioli and San Patrignano were very close to many famous and powerful people—actors, politicians, singers, journalists. Throughout Italy, Muccioli was seen as the only player capable of tackling the problem of drug addiction, which in those years was dramatically rising. “Politicians of all stripes visited San Patrignano in search of votes,” journalist Stefano Trasatti, who has covered the Italian drugs, addiction and harm reduction field, told Filter.

Getting into San Patrignano was no easy feat for those without wealthy or celebrity connections. “You had to stand for days or weeks in front of the entrance gate in order to aspire to have introductory interviews with Muccioli and some of his collaborators,” Severi recalled. “One exception was trying your luck on Christmas night, because on that occasion Muccioli made a concession in front of the cameras and let in whoever was at the door.”

But “rehabilitation”—if it can be called that, given that Muccioli rejected evidence-based treatment protocols—was free for all participants.

“There was this bizarre idea that people could be rehabilitated simply by having them work from morning to night, in this kind of ‘city’ divided by production sectors,” Severi said. “They called it ‘The City Effect.’ But the city was basically a fake place where people could sleep, work, eat and repeat for free.”

“Individuals weren’t as important as the group. Letting individuals down when they were opposing the community’s society was okay with Muccioli. That’s why violence was a part of their toolbox.”

Lasting Harm

“San Patrignano was a community built around Muccioli, who was some sort of guru,” Trasatti said. “His figure fueled the typical Italian need for a strong man in charge. In television debates, and even during the trials, people were crazy about him and organized protests in his favor.”

In Italy, as in many parts of the world, the main narrative of drug use revolves exclusively around crime and overdose. “Nobody cared about Muccioli’s methods, nor the rights of [people who use drugs],” Trasatti said. “They needed someone who was willing to … get them out of people’s sight, segregate them somewhere far away.”

Today, drugs in Italy are regulated by a law called Iervolino-Vassalli. According to that law, penalties for people charged with possession of drugs involve extended incarceration. As a result, one-third of the 60,000 people incarcerated in Italy are held on drug-related charges.

According to Trasatti, “San Patrignano explicitly produced the Iervolino-Vassalli of 1990”—so much so that the law is sometimes called Iervolino-Muccioli. The resulting cultural mindset was that people who use drugs deserve punishment, for no other reason than that they use drugs. 

There are very few studies on the impact that Muccioli’s and San Patrignano’s methods had on the health of the guests. The best known of these found that 90 percent of the guests found a stable job after their experience in rehab. “The problem is that the sample they used was very small and, in any case, carefully selected by the community itself,” Trasatti said.

“Certainly in San Patrignano some people were saved,” Severi said. “But I believe that they were saved not thanks to San Patrignano, but in spite of it.”

Photograph via Netflix/YouTube

The post Behind the Notorious Italian Rehab Community in Netflix’s “SanPa” appeared first on Filter.

Elia didn’t know it, but he was about to face a year-long ordeal.

The criminalization of so-called “soft drugs”—marijuana and its derivatives, such as hash—has a long history In Italy. Between the 1940s and the 1960s, Italy went from being one of the world’s top hemp producers to a country where hemp cultivation, possession, sale and use is severely sanctioned.

Because of a law called Fini-Giovanardi, between 2006 and 2014 Italian courts did not distinguish between “soft” and “hard” drugs when sanctioning drug-related charges. The recommended sentence for marijuana users and dealers was six to 20 years in prison.

“The officers told me, ‘a boy of your age … why don’t you go whoring instead of smoking joints?’”

Drugs in Italy are regulated by a law enacted in 1990—the Fini-Giovanardi law replaced it in 2006 and was ultimately defined as unconstitutional in 2014, leaving the original law in power once again. The culture of criminalization has remained deeply rooted in Italy’s national politics and its law enforcement. 

“When they put me in the car to take me to the barracks, the officers told me, ‘a boy of your age … why don’t you go whoring instead of smoking joints?’” Elia said. “I was afraid.” Shortly afterwards he gave the officers all the drugs he had at home—about half an ounce of marijuana.

Elia was charged with dealing and sentenced to one year’s house arrest, during which police officers were free to inspect his home as often as they wished, at all hours of the day or night. He was forbidden to see friends or engage in social activities outside of school. After a few months, he was permitted to play recreational sports. He still felt lucky; he had been close to receiving a sentence that was much harsher.

One-third of the 60,000 people incarcerated in Italy are in prison on drug-related charges. In 2019 alone, police reported 41,744 Italians to the Prefect as drug users—78 percent of them for using marijuana or hash.

Drug prohibition has been estimated to cost Italy the equivalent of nearly $25 billion per year. That cost supports detention conditions that are “ineffective and repressive drug legislation, which is one of the main causes of entry and stay in prison,” according to a 2019 report published by the Associazione Antigone. The European Union has fined Italy many times for prison overcrowding, a violation of prisoners’ human rights. Much of the problem of prison overcrowding could be solved or largely alleviated by more liberal drug policy. 

“The responsibility lies with a timid and bigoted political class.”

“Italy’s approach to drugs is completely anti-scientific and obtuse,” former Member of Parliament Rita Bernardini told Filter. Bernardini is a member of Italy’s left-leaning Radical Party, which has been fighting for decades for the legalization and regulation of all drugs.

According to Barnardini, decriminalization is broadly popular among Italians—just not the Italian government. “It is not a cultural issue of the country. The responsibility lies with a timid and bigoted political class.”

Even if Italian law provides no clear definition of “personal use,” the penalties for people charged with possession of drugs for personal use generally involve mandated counseling or perhaps passport suspension, while penalties for possession of drugs “for selling purposes” involve extended incarceration.

In 1993, the Radicals organized a popular referendum calling for the repeal of sentences for the personal use of drugs. The Radicals’ front won, and restrictions on personal use were repealed. But then the Fini-Giovanardi law pushed the country back into prohibition.

The only attempt to legalize any drug since then was a timid effort in 2016, when cultivation and marketing of so-called “light” cannabis—containing derisory amounts of THC—was allowed. Nevertheless, this legalization led to a boom in new shops dedicated to low-THC weed (0.6 percent), which often contains a high percentage of relaxing CBD (up to 15 percent).

This opening has largely failed to remove market slices from illegal cannabis, as evidenced by data provided by the National Drug Police. Bernardini described the 2016 law as an “unbelievable mockery” that had no material effect on the Italian prison system or the country at large.

“Italy has a great cannabis culture, but remains stifled by a stupid and prohibitionist approach.”

In October 2020, Health Minister Roberto Speranza signed a decree including CBD-based products in the national list of prohibited drugs—potentially disrupting the entire “light” cannabis supply chain—despite WHO’s recommendation that Italy recognize the medical properties of cannabis and not classify CBD-based products as narcotics. The decree was withdrawn shortly afterwards, largely thanks to pressures from two hemp groups.

“Although it had no effect, it was a maneuver that showed how difficult it is to do business in this country,” Riccardo Ricci, president of the Italian Cannabis light association, told Filter. “Italy has a great cannabis culture, but remains stifled by a stupid and prohibitionist approach, when it would be enough to copy laws already existing in countries like Canada or Switzerland.”

According to Ricci, the low-THC cannabis supply chain would benefit from legalizing marijuana and hash, as shops could also sell high-THC content products. 

“I think it’s a matter of who the state wants to work. Legalization helps growers [and] transporters as well as professional, expert and well-informed sellers interested in providing a quality product,” Ricci said. “The problem to solve is therefore no longer cultural. It’s just that our state prefers ignoring traders and growers in favor of the overwhelming power of organized crime and the pharmaceutical companies.”

Photograph via Wikimedia Commons/Creative Commons 2.0

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