The exchange via social media between Vasco Rossi and Matteo Salvini continues. As is known, the new highway code that has come into force provides that the suspension of the license not only rightly applies to those who drive while impaired, but also to those who test positive for the use of narcotic substances, a use which may have been done in the previous days. In other words: if you are perfectly lucid, but there are traces of the intake of some substance left in your system, if the police decide to submit you to a test you can be punished with the suspension of your driving licence.
Last Saturday Vasco published a video in which he says that «Matteo Salvini has made sure – for your good – that if you smoked a joint even a week before and are stopped, you can be arrested immediately and your license will be withdrawn for three years”. And then, sarcastically: «Minister Salvini decided this for your good».
Salvini responded yesterday by writing that “the great Vasco doesn't need me to respond”. But then in the same post Instagram responds to him by distorting his words (Rossi didn't protest because you can't get behind the wheel after using “certain drugs”, he talked about smoking a joint a week before getting behind the wheel). «I have been to many concerts in Milan rather than in Rome by Vasco Rossi, I really like him as a singer», says Salvini in the video. «He is upset because he says that if someone uses some drugs and then gets behind the wheel he risks something, well I invite Vasco Rossi not to deal with politics or with Minister Salvini, but to have a chat with those too many parents who have lost too many children to fault of those who drove after using drugs. We are liberal, we are libertarians, everyone does what they want in their lives, but drugs are death, every type of drug is always death.”
It is well known that Salvini likes Vasco. His tweet from July 2013 was unforgettable: «Great evening with the Northern League Brothers. Juniper, absinthe, limoncello and now… peaceful behind the wheel with Vasco! We are free, free!!!”. But for a minister to pretend not to understand the difference between driving immediately after taking drugs and getting behind the wheel a week after having done a joint is incredible. Salvini knows the problem, however. It is explained well on the website of his Ministry: the new law «provides that the mere assumption and consequent positivity of drugs leads to punishment. In the past, however, it was necessary to prove the state of alteration in order to impose a sanction.” So much so that Salvini has asked for the creation of a working group to ensure that individuals who use therapeutic cannabis are not sanctioned.
Vasco reminded him of the difference in another Instagram post: «Dear Salvini, I don't have to deal with anyone other than you… I don't write the laws. I would like you to compare yourself with all those who, without a driving licence, will lose their jobs and will no longer be able to go to work (already have a driving licence, it's not just for going around at night having fun.) I too am close (like everyone else) to the relatives of victims of road accidents caused by drunk or drugged drivers. But your new law, Salvini, does not prevent this. IT DOES NOT SAVE ANY LIVES! Punishes and arrests those who are perfectly lucid behind the wheel, may have consumed cannabis or even passive smoking Even in the days before driving! This IS NOT REDUCE road accidents, but it is making propaganda on people's skin and persecuting a minority that cannot defend itself. Please recover and change this fucking law!
