JUDGMENT NO. 10

YEAR 2026

ITALIAN REPUBLIC

IN THE NAME OF THE ITALIAN PEOPLE

THE CONSTITUTIONAL COURT

composed of:

President: Giovanni AMOROSO;

Judges: Francesco VIGANÒ, Luca ANTONINI, Stefano PETITTI, Angelo BUSCEMA, Emanuela NAVARRETTA, Maria Rosaria SAN GIORGIO, Filippo PATRONI GRIFFI, Marco D’ALBERTI, Giovanni PITRUZZELLA, Antonella SCIARRONE ALIBRANDI, Massimo LUCIANI, Maria Alessandra SANDULLI, Roberto Nicola CASSINELLI, Francesco Saverio MARINI,
has issued the following

JUDGMENT

in the constitutional legitimacy proceedings concerning Article 187, paragraphs 1 and 1-bis, of Legislative Decree No. 285 of April 30, 1992 (New Highway Code), as amended by Article 1, paragraph 1, letter b), numbers 1) and 2), of Law No. 177 of November 25, 2024 (Interventions regarding road safety and delegation to the Government for the revision of the Highway Code, referred to in Legislative Decree No. 285 of April 30, 1992), initiated by the Preliminary Investigations Judge of the Ordinary Court of Macerata and the Preliminary Investigations Judge of the Ordinary Court of Siena, with orders of March 28 and April 18, 2025, registered respectively under numbers 93 and 99 of the 2025 registry of orders and published in the Official Gazette of the Republic numbers 22 and 23, first special series, of 2025; and in the constitutional legitimacy proceeding concerning Article 1, paragraph 1, letter b), numbers 1) and 2), of Law No. 177 of 2024, amending Article 187, paragraphs 1 and 1-bis, of Legislative Decree No. 285 of 1992, initiated by the Preliminary Investigations Judge of the Ordinary Court of Pordenone with an order of April 8, 2025, registered under number 125 of the 2025 registry of orders and published in the Official Gazette of the Republic number 26, first special series, of 2025;

Having seen the intervention briefs of the President of the Council of Ministers;

having heard, in the council chamber of December 1, 2025, the Reporting Judge Francesco Viganò;

deliberated in the council chamber of December 1, 2025.

Facts Considered

1.– By order of March 28, 2025, registered under no. 93 reg. ord. of 2025, the Preliminary Investigations Judge of the Ordinary Court of Macerata raised – in reference to Articles 3 and 25 of the Constitution – questions of constitutional legitimacy of Article 187-bis (recte: Article 187) of Legislative Decree No. 285 of April 30, 1992 (New Highway Code), as amended by Law No. 177 of November 25, 2024 (Interventions regarding road safety and delegation to the Government for the revision of the Highway Code, referred to in Legislative Decree No. 285 of April 30, 1992), challenging it insofar as it provides that "[a]nyone who drives after having consumed narcotic or psychotropic substances” is punishable, "in the absence of any specification regarding the temporal period of consumption and the persisting effects of such consumption at the time of driving”.

1.1.– The referring judge is seized of a request for a penal decree of conviction against a defendant "for the offence provided for and punished by art. 187 of the Highway Code because he drove after having consumed narcotic or psychotropic substances” (as well as for the offence under art. 186 of the Highway Code for driving with a blood alcohol level of 2.55 g/l)”. According to the reporting judge, the case file indicates that in January 2025 the defendant was involved in a road accident while driving his motorcycle, and that urine analysis performed shortly thereafter in the hospital revealed positivity for cocaine and its metabolites ("cut off 300 mg/ml”). Such finding, according to the jurisprudence of the Court of Cassation ("receptive of scientific literature results”), would be "unsuitable for proving a state of psychophysical impairment of the subject at the time of driving, as such positivity is compatible with consumption even dating back in time”. Furthermore, the file lacks "further significant elements” regarding the offence under art. 187 of the Highway Code, as the defendant, upon the arrival of the judicial police, "presented in an altered state but with symptoms attributable to alcohol abuse and not drug abuse” – a circumstance later confirmed by blood tests, which showed a blood alcohol level of 2.55 g/l.

1.2.– Regarding the relevance of the questions, the referring judge emphasizes that "the ascertained positivity to cocaine of the defendant following urine analysis” would entail, in light of art. 187 of the Highway Code, as amended by Law No. 177 of 2024, "the possible issuance of the requested penal decree proving a consumption of narcotic substances preceding the driving”, even if this circumstance is not suitable "to ascertain that the [defendant] was driving under the influence of narcotic substances, nor to determine when they were consumed”. Furthermore, there are no "other negative elements” concerning the request for a penal decree.

1.3.– As to the non-manifest groundlessness, the referring judge first observes that art. 187 of the Highway Code, as amended by Law No. 177 of 2024, punishes "[a]nyone who drives after having consumed narcotic or psychotropic substances”. The literal meaning of this provision would be "completely irrational or inadmissiblely generic”. In the absence of any "temporal delimitation” of the consumption relative to the driving, in fact, the offense would entail "the consequence […] that if a person had consumed narcotics at the age of 18 and then drove at the age of 60, they would be punishable as ‘driving after having consumed narcotic or psychotropic substances’”. On the other hand, "[i]f instead it is held that this expression refers to a time frame close to the driving (a more rational reading), this would be a completely generic provision lacking content such as to allow the law reader – whether a citizen or a magistrate – to understand what this temporal element is (1 hour? 2 hours? 4 hours? 8 hours? 24 hours?...)”.

Nor can the function of "creating” the norm be delegated to jurisprudence, by interpreting it "as correlated to a time frame that logically suggests the persisting effect of the narcotic substance”, because such an interpretation would introduce a constitutive element into the offense "completely extraneous to the literal meaning of the norm” and to be "molded interpretively at the (inadmissible) discretion of jurisprudence”. Such an interpretive outcome, moreover, "would give relevance to constitutive elements unequivocally omitted by the legislator in formulating the norm”.

The "[t]otal generality” of the provision would therefore entail its constitutional illegitimacy due to violation of art. 25 of the Constitution, as the abstract offense lacks "precise characteristics” and an "intelligible description” (citing this Court’s Judgment No. 96 of 1981).

1.4.– From another perspective, the provision also violates the principle of necessary offensiveness of the crime, equally derivable from art. 25, second paragraph, of the Constitution (citing this Court’s Judgment No. 116 of 2024), given that it would also apply to "conducts lacking any danger to traffic (such as the situation of someone who has consumed narcotics whose effects have now completely worn off and of which only traces remain in the urine)”. Scientific literature and jurisprudence have in fact established that in many cases driving without impairment can occur even after the consumption of narcotics, once their effects have ceased, so that the legislative assessment of the dangerousness of the criminalized conduct would be "irrational and arbitrary and not responsive to what generally happens” (*id quod plerumque accidit*), contrary to what is required by the jurisprudence of this Court. An offense already intended to ensure "anticipated protection of public safety and private safety and property,” such as art. 187 of the Highway Code, would thus penalize "conducts (not only not directly harmful to these assets but even) lacking any possible relevance to endanger them (driving when all effects of the narcotic have vanished, based solely on prior consumption)”.

The derogation from the principle of necessary offensiveness of the crime cannot, on the other hand, be justified by the "possible difficulties related to ascertaining an effective state of impairment/dangerousness while driving”, given the availability of scientifically suitable tests and assessments for this purpose (such as blood sampling) and the possibility of inferring the state of impairment also from elements other than biological analyses (as highlighted in the jurisprudence of the Court of Cassation). In any case, the mere difficulty of proving a necessary constitutive element to render the prediction of a criminal offense rational and constitutional cannot legitimize waiving that element.

1.5.– Finally, it would conflict with the principles of equality and reasonableness to sanction, under art. 187 of the Highway Code, those who "drive while intoxicated” – as well as, under art. 186-bis, those who drive "after having consumed alcoholic beverages and under the influence thereof” – and to completely disregard the state of impairment in the offense under art. 187 of the Highway Code. The fact that "the use of alcohol is generally lawful […] while that of narcotics is always illegal” would not be sufficient to resolve the incongruity, considering that "the mere generic prior consumption of narcotics is […] an aspect completely irrelevant to the occurrence of a situation of actual danger to traffic and already independently sanctioned (art. 75 D.P.R. no. 309/90)”.

It would be equally irrational to sanction, as in the case of art. 187 of the Highway Code, "someone who, holding a license, drives after a prior (unlawful) consumption of narcotics without any proof of the possible relevance of such conduct to affect their driving behavior”, and not to penalize those who drive without a license: the latter conduct, which presumably appears clearly dangerous for road traffic, is subject only to an "administrative sanction” under art. 116 of the Highway Code.

1.6.– In conclusion, the referring judge hopes that this Court – "if it does not deem a more incisive determination appropriate” – will issue a constitutionally necessary additive ruling, adding to the mere temporal criterion already contained in the legislative provision ("after having consumed narcotic or psychotropic substances”) a result-based criterion (it can be hypothesized, with reference to art. 186-bis of the Highway Code, "and under the influence thereof”).

2.– The President of the Council of Ministers intervened in the proceedings, represented and defended by the State Attorney General’s Office, requesting that the questions be declared inadmissible or in any case manifestly unfounded.

2.1.– The questions would be inadmissible, in the first place, due to lack of relevance, given that the defendant was allegedly involved in a road accident, "thereby incurring the offense under art. 187, paragraph 1-bis, of the Highway Code”, while the request for a penal decree of conviction was formulated under paragraph 1 of that article, because the defendant "drove after having consumed narcotic or psychotropic substances”. The referring judge, therefore, should have returned the file to the Public Prosecutor pursuant to art. 459, paragraph 3, of the Code of Criminal Procedure. In any event, there is a lack of reasoning regarding relevance, "only apodictically asserted”, without specifying the possible "decisional options”.

Inadmissibility, secondly, would derive from the referring judge's failure to preliminarily examine the possibility of an interpretation consistent with the Constitution: an interpretation that is feasible, as the challenged provision should be understood to mean that "not every prior consumption of narcotic substances constitutes the offense under art. 187 of the Highway Code, but only that consumption which, relative to the time of driving, occurs within an appreciable time interval and therefore has a direct influence on the driver's capabilities”.

Furthermore, the questions would be inadmissible due to lack of reasoning, as the *a quo* judge failed to fully describe the concrete facts under his examination.

Inadmissibility would also derive from the "generality and perplexity of the formulation” of the questions, both as to the existence of the alleged violations and as to the constitutional parameters, invoked without "a complete exposition of the reasons that suggest the invoked contrast”. Nor is the "exact nature of the intervention requested [from this] Court clear, whether it is additive or merely declaratory of nullity of the challenged provision or, again, if the referring judge intends to request another intervention”.

Finally, the questions would be inadmissible because they seek to solicit an additive intervention from this Court in a matter reserved to the discretion of the legislator, such as that concerning the choice of "anticipated forms of protection, which strike at the aggression to the protected assets at the stage of mere exposure to danger”, as well as the identification of the threshold of dangerousness to which the punitive response is connected (citing this Court’s Judgment No. 139 of 2023).

2.2.– On the merits, the questions would in any case be manifestly unfounded.

2.2.1.– The State's defense first focuses on the *ratio* of the normative amendment: following the elimination of the clinical parameter of psychophysical impairment from the constitutive elements of the criminal offense, the "diabolical proof” of the causal link between consumption and impairment, which in the past had made the ascertainment of the offense extremely difficult and resulted in the "substantial impunity of certain conducts which are, instead, the most dangerous for public safety”, would no longer be necessary. The characteristic element of the new criminal offense would now be constituted by "the close link between the consumption of the substance and the driving of the vehicle”, which would materialize "in a persisting influence of the narcotic or psychotropic substance capable of exerting negative effects on driving ability”, the ascertainment of which would be ensured "by the use of specific biological matrices, blood or oral fluid samples of the driver, in the tests necessary to ascertain the consumption of narcotic or psychotropic substances”. To allow for the sampling of biological fluid samples for the purpose of ascertaining the current use of the narcotic or psychotropic substance, the legislator has, moreover, intervened on other provisions of art. 187 of the Highway Code itself, which were overlooked by the referring judge.

The legislator's choice, therefore, would not be "at all unreasonable, let alone arbitrary or irrational”. Rather, the new provision would avoid the uncertainties and difficulties previously linked to the concrete ascertainment of the state of impairment and would be "in line with the need to ensure effective punishment of conducts”.

2.2.2.– With regard to the principle of necessary offensiveness of the criminal offense, the meaning to be attributed to the adverb "after” (dopo), contained in art. 187 of the Highway Code, would not be "either generic or contrary to the aforementioned principle”: this is because "the concrete ascertainment of the persisting influence of the narcotic or psychotropic substance on the driver [would be] ensured by the use of specific biological matrices (blood and saliva) and not others (e.g., hair analysis) which truly make the risk to the safety of the agent himself and third parties concrete and current”.

Moreover, the referring judge proceeds from an erroneous interpretive assumption, because "[n]ot every prior consumption of narcotic substances constitutes the offense under art. 187 of the Highway Code, but only that consumption which, relative to the time of driving, occurs within an appreciable time interval and therefore has a direct influence on the driver's capabilities”. The "prerequisite” for the offense, given by the "consumption of the substance”, would be relevant "in itself […] for the effect that the substance determines based on the technical-scientific judgment underlying its classification”, carried out in accordance with a "technical-scientific judgment conducted by the competent authorities according to the provisions contained in D.P.R. no. 309/1990”.

The new offense would thus be one of "presumed danger” rather than "concrete danger”. The presumption of dangerousness would be "inherent in the very notion of a narcotic or psychotropic substance, which is such only because it is capable of causing impairment in the human organism”.

The normative amendment, in this sense, would "fully meet the needs of a liberal-democratic criminal system, which admits presumed danger offenses provided that: a) their prediction refers to the anticipated protection of particularly important assets, respecting the principle of proportionality; b) protection in the different form of the concrete danger offense proves insufficient due to the difficulties in precisely defining the probability of harm, thus respecting the principle of subsidiarity; c) the identification of the conducts occurs according to recognized scientific rules, respecting the principle of rational congruence between means and ends”.

In this case, it is "evident how: under a), the rule concerns the anticipated protection of primary assets such as the life and physical integrity of persons; under b), protection in the form of concrete danger proves insufficient precisely due to the evidentiary difficulties connected to verifying the state of impairment; under c), the identification of the conducts is carried out on the basis of scientific rules that underpin the identification of the substances and, therefore, the inherent danger arising from their consumption”.

To further support these arguments, the intervening party refers to the "guidelines adopted by the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of the Interior (Protocol No. 10180 of April 11, 2025), concerning ‘Forensic toxicological assessment procedures for verifying the condition of driving under the influence of alcohol or after consuming narcotic or psychotropic substances referred to in articles 186, 186-bis and 187 of the Highway Code’”, according to which "the ascertainment of the persisting influence of the narcotic or psychotropic substance and, therefore, the potential dangerousness of the conduct, with consequent risk of harm to the legal interest protected by the criminal norm, is ensured by the use of specific biological matrices, blood or oral fluid samples of the driver, in the tests necessary to ascertain the consumption of narcotic or psychotropic substances”.

The guidelines would contribute "to further filling the precept of the criminal offense with content”, limiting the criminal relevance of the conduct "to those cases in which the use of narcotic or psychotropic substances is ‘active and relevant’, i.e., to those offenses in which a serious danger to traffic safety is found”.

To support the constitutional legitimacy of the amendment, the State Attorney General’s Office invokes the constitutional jurisprudence according to which it is within "the discretion of the legislator to opt for anticipated forms of protection, which strike at the aggression to the protected assets at the stage of mere exposure to danger, as well as, correlatively, to identify the threshold of dangerousness to which the punitive response is connected”. Regarding danger offenses – and specifically, presumed danger offenses – constitutional review should be limited to verifying that the legislative assessment of the dangerousness of the criminalized conduct does not prove to be irrational and arbitrary, but responds to what generally happens (*id quod plerumque accidit*) (citing Judgment No. 139 of 2023).

The legislative assessment of the dangerousness of the conduct criminalized by the challenged norm would be neither irrational nor arbitrary, "as driving after consuming narcotic or psychotropic substances constitutes, as statistics, scientific literature, and news events demonstrate, one of the most dangerous behaviors for road traffic because it has a higher probability of causing a serious road accident”. On the other hand, the "confirmed presence of active ingredients of the substances in the usable biological matrices” could "never completely exclude the danger connected to the presence of biological effects of narcotic or psychotropic substances capable of influencing driving ability and, therefore, capable of endangering road safety and, consequently, the safety of road users”.

2.2.3.– Likewise unfounded would be the challenges concerning the violation of the principle of equality and reasonableness, considering that the *tertia comparationis* invoked by the referring judge (arts. 116, 186 and 186-bis of the Highway Code) concern heterogeneous offenses compared to the challenged one. In any case, the legislator's choice falls within the scope of its discretion and the challenged provision would be "reasonable, proportionate, appropriate and adequate to the aim pursued by the legislator”.

3.– By order of April 18, 2025, registered under no. 99 reg. ord. of 2025, the Preliminary Investigations Judge of the Ordinary Court of Siena raised – in reference to Articles 3, 13, 25, second paragraph, and 27 of the Constitution – questions of constitutional legitimacy of Article 187, paragraph 1, of Legislative Decree No. 285 of 1992, as amended by Article 1 of Law No. 177 of 2024, "insofar as it does not provide for the necessity of ascertaining the occurrence of an actual psychophysical impairment resulting from the consumption of narcotic or psychotropic substances in the person who drives”.

3.1.– The referring judge is seized of a request for a penal decree of conviction against a person charged with the contravention under art. 187, paragraph 1, of the Highway Code, for having driven a car after consuming narcotic substances (cocaine). Stopped during traffic control activities for the prevention and repression of offenses related to narcotic substances, the defendant consented to the sampling of biological specimens. Both urine and blood tests confirmed positivity for cocaine.

3.2.– Regarding relevance, the *a quo* judge highlights: a) the applicability in the main proceeding of art. 187, paragraph 1, of the Highway Code in its current wording, in force at the time of the fact; b) the impact of a decision upholding the constitutional legitimacy questions on the exercise of judicial function, even considering only that "the proposed additive ruling (in bonam partem) would require the ascertainment of factual aspects (such as those relating to the actuality of the ‘state of psychophysical impairment’), currently omitted by the abstract offense as restructured by the legislator in 2024”. Moreover, even if one wished to reconstruct the relevance review in a more substantial way, by understanding it as a verification of the actual influence of the resolution of the question on the outcome of the main proceeding, the conclusion would not change. In the referring judge’s opinion, in fact, should the challenged norm be deemed consistent with the Constitution, he would have to deem the offense charged as constituted and therefore issue the penal decree of conviction, whereas if the questions were upheld, he would have to reject the related request based on the facts established.

3.3.– Regarding the non-manifest groundlessness, the referring judge recalls that, in its previous wording, art. 187 of the Highway Code punished "[a]nyone who drives in a state of psychophysical impairment after having consumed narcotic or psychotropic substances”, thereby describing an "offense (not of result, but of conduct) of danger (indeed, abstract), functional to the (anticipated) protection of the interest in ‘road traffic safety’”.

According to the "absolutely consolidated” interpretative framework (which the referring judge reconstructs with numerous references to constitutional and Cassation jurisprudence), the offense was constituted by the concurrence of two qualifying elements: "on the one hand, the state of impairment, capable of compromising the normal psychophysical conditions necessary for driving and constituting per se a dangerous conduct for road traffic safety; on the other hand, the consumption of substances (narcotic or psychotropic) capable of causing the state of impairment”. For the proof of this state, the ascertainment of "a state of consciousness simply modified by the consumption of narcotic substances” was deemed sufficient, not necessarily a condition of intoxication.

Law No. 177 of 2024 allegedly intervened on this normative and applicative framework – as would emerge from the preparatory works of the bill A.C. No. 1435, from which the law originated – in order to "remedy the operational difficulties encountered in charging the offense of driving after consuming narcotic substances, mainly by acting on the assessment tools available to law enforcement agencies”. The legislator allegedly intended, in particular, to "overcome the state of psychophysical impairment as a prerequisite for typifying the criminal offense, which in fact resulted in the non-punishability of conducts particularly dangerous for public safety”.

As a result of the normative intervention, the disvalue of the offense would no longer rest on a conduct capable of endangering the interest in "road traffic safety”, instrumental to the protection of the safety of road users, but "on the mere fact of chronological succession” between the consumption of narcotic or psychotropic substances and the driving. This would result in "an operation with expanding effects on the perimeter of penal liability” within which would fall both the hypothesis of driving after the consumption of narcotic or psychotropic substances followed by psychophysical impairment, and the hypothesis of driving, after the consumption of narcotic or psychotropic substances, but "in the absence of any (concrete, actual) impairment”.

The interpretation of the amended provision, supported by the literal argument and the *intentio legislatoris*, is not open to constitutionally oriented interpretations. Nor is the reference in paragraph 2-bis of art. 187 of the Highway Code to the suspicion that the driver is "under the effect resulting from the use of narcotic or psychotropic substances” valid, as this circumstance would be relevant not for the delimitation of criminal illegality, but only for the attribution of additional powers to road police authorities.

3.4.– Based on this interpretation, the referring judge denounces, under a first profile, the violation "of the necessary offensiveness, under Articles 13, 25, second paragraph and 27 of the Constitution, as a ‘demonstrative’ principle” and of the "Prohibition of ‘author’ criminalizations”.

After briefly outlining the presentation, in doctrine, of the "demonstrative scope (also) of the principle of necessary offensiveness of the crime, which appears capable, *ex se*, of justifying a declaration of unconstitutionality, without the need for any assistance from the (often juxtaposed) principles of reasonableness and proportionality” (citing this Court’s judgments No. 354 of 2002 and No. 249 of 2010), the *a quo* judge observes that in the conduct described by the current art. 187, paragraph 1, of the Highway Code, "having neutralized the predictive potential of psychophysical impairment”, "no element, let alone scientifically founded one, capable of supporting the conclusion that, in the absence of impairment, there may be any harm […] in terms of endangering the interest in ‘road traffic safety’” can be found.

The "radical absence of potential dangerousness of the conduct” would moreover open up "a perspective of further, patent, violation of basic constitutional canons, which do not tolerate ‘author’ criminalizations, as conflicting with the ‘principle of the fact’, which is a necessary prerequisite for the principle of offensiveness”. This is because the "fulcrum [of the new] criminalization, deprived of the relevance of psychophysical impairment, would be reshaped around the fact that the agent consumed narcotic or psychotropic substances”. A criminalization would thus be proposed that would concern "a way of being of the agent, a consumer of narcotic or psychotropic substances”.

3.5.– Under another profile, the "principle of offensiveness-reasonableness, under Articles 3, 13, 25, second paragraph, 27 of the Constitution”, would be violated due to the "manifest irrationality of the presumption of dangerousness underlying the criminalization”. In relation to, in fact, the "classes of (sub-)offenses in which the agent drove after consuming narcotic or psychotropic substances, in the absence of any (concrete, actual) impairment”, art. 187, paragraph 1, of the Highway Code establishes an offense of presumed dangerous conduct, "in which the presumption of dangerousness placed absolutely by the legislator is not supported by any – let alone adequate – legal basis, given that – having removed psychophysical impairment from the set of factual elements that can be relevant for setting the judgment of causation of the event intended by the legislator – the offense appears completely devoid of any scientifically or empirically founded potential to harm the protected interest”.

3.6.– The radical absence of offensiveness inherent in the aforementioned sub-offense would also be contrary to "the objective of the rehabilitation of the convicted person established by art. 27, third paragraph, of the Constitution and which cannot be sacrificed even in the face of the enhancement of other functions of the penalty”.

3.7.– Finally, the referring judge denounces the violation of the principle of equality-reasonableness, due to the manifest irrationality of equating the treatment of different situations, characterized by different disvalues: a) that of someone who drives, under the influence of substances, with actual psychophysical impairment; b) that of someone who does the same, in the absence of any impairment of their driving capacity (engaging in conduct devoid of any potential for harm or, in any case, possessing a potential for harm completely different from hypothesis sub a).

3.8.– No constitutionally oriented interpretation of the challenged discipline would be possible, because an "interpretative [re]conversion” of the offense would require attributing relevance to the element of psychophysical impairment, "whose relevance […] was expressly and unequivocally opposed by the legislator”.

4.– The President of the Council of Ministers also intervened in the proceedings, represented and defended by the State Attorney General’s Office, challenging the inadmissibility and, in any case, the manifest groundlessness of the questions.

4.1.– The questions would be inadmissible, under a first profile, "due to deficient and inadequate representation of the facts”, as the judge omitted to state whether the degree of positivity revealed by the toxicological tests "led to that psychophysical impairment in the driver which, in theory, would constitute an essential requirement for a constitutionally oriented reading of the criminal offense”:

Furthermore, the referring judge would have failed to attempt to provide a constitutionally oriented reading of the challenged provision (an interpretation possible, according to the intervening party, for the reasons already stated in relation to order no. 93 reg. ord. of 2025).

4.2.– On the merits, the questions would in any case be manifestly unfounded.

4.2.1.– The arguments of the State Attorney General’s Office are analogous to those developed in relation to the order registered under no. 93 reg. ord. of 2025. In addition, the intervening party highlights that the amended art. 187 of the Highway Code would not have "any innovative scope with respect to the already existing prohibition on driving by subjects undergoing pharmacological therapies based on the consumption of psychotropic substances”, and emphasizes that the rehabilitative purpose of the new provision, "certainly characterized here also by aspects of special prevention”, would be "fully respected”. The challenged norm, ultimately, would be "proportionate, appropriate and adequate to the aim pursued by the legislator”.

5.– Pursuant to art. 6 of the Supplementary Provisions for proceedings before the Constitutional Court, the Union of Italian Criminal Chambers (UCPI), as *amicus curiae*, filed a written opinion, admitted by presidential decree of October 14, 2025, in which, deeming the constitutional legitimacy questions raised by the referring Preliminary Investigations Judge well-founded, it hopes that this Court will offer a constitutionally oriented reading of art. 1, paragraph 1, letter b), numbers 1) and 2), of Law No. 177 of 2024 and of art. 187, paragraphs 1 and 1-bis of Legislative Decree No. 285 of 1992, "restoring through interpretation and *in bonam partem* – including through a judgment of rejection of interpretation – the requirement of psychophysical impairment eliminated by the legislator”.

In the alternative, the UCPI trusts in a declaration of unconstitutionality of the aforementioned norms "for conflict with art. 25, paragraph 2 of the Constitution, in conjunction with Articles 3 and 27, paragraph 3 of the Constitution, in that they, by not contemplating the need for any assessment regarding the occurrence of an actual psychophysical impairment resulting from the consumption of narcotic or psychotropic substances in the person who drives, unreasonably provide for a criminal sanction for an act that, instead, is non-offensive”.

The *amicus curiae* also hopes that this Court's review will overcome the limit of the referral (confined to art. 187, paragraph 1, of the Highway Code) and extend to art. 1, paragraph 1, letter b), numbers 1) and 2), of Law No. 177 of 2024, which introduced the challenged amendments. The redefinition of the *petitum* would allow scrutiny also of number 2) of art. 1, paragraph 1, letter b), of Law No. 177 of 2024, which eliminated the words "in a state of psychophysical impairment” from paragraph 1-bis of art. 187 of the Highway Code (concerning the more severely punished hypothesis where the driver, after consuming narcotic substances, causes an accident), avoiding the incongruity that, if the questions raised are upheld, this requirement would be restored for paragraph 1 of art. 187 of the Highway Code, but not also for paragraph 1-bis.

Regarding the merits of the challenges, the *amicus* observes that:

– the aspect of deficient offensiveness denounced by the referring judge exists, with consequent violation of art. 25, second paragraph, of the Constitution, considering that the challenged offense penalizes driving after consuming a narcotic substance, regardless of the circumstance that its effect is still present or has completely worn off;

– the legislative assessment of the dangerousness of the criminalized conduct would prove irrational and arbitrary, based on "an unproven danger ‘always and in any case’ of prior consumption of the narcotic substance, regardless of the time elapsed between such consumption and the driving conduct”;

– the presumption of danger would not even be based on *id quod plerumque accidit*, constituting, on the contrary, common knowledge, also known to the Cassation jurisprudence, that the "narcotic effect” varies from substance to substance and tends to decrease over time;

– the principle of equality would also be violated, under multiple profiles: a) because the currently effective norm would punish "in the same way someone who drives in a state of psychophysical incapacity due to substance consumption and someone who drives perfectly composed because the effects of the consumed substance have long since vanished”; b) because the same statutory frame would be provided for a presumed danger conduct (art. 187, paragraph 1, of the Highway Code) and for a concrete danger conduct for road safety, such as that outlined in art. 186, paragraph 2, of the Highway Code for the most serious cases of drunk driving; c) because the conduct of illicit importation, exportation, purchase, reception by any title or detention of narcotic or psychotropic substances for personal use would be sanctioned only administratively, while "the consumption of the substance combined with lawful conduct, such as driving a vehicle”, would be criminally sanctioned, even when the consumption of the substance does not result in a state of impairment and therefore a danger to road traffic;

– there would also be a conflict with art. 27, third paragraph, of the Constitution, both because, "[i]f the conduct engaged in by the agent is not dangerous, they do not need to be rehabilitated”, and because the "rehabilitative path” could in any case not be the same "for someone who engages in only presumably dangerous conduct and for someone who exposes the protected legal interest to actual danger”.

The irrationality of the current normative framework would also affect paragraph 1-bis of art. 187 of the Highway Code, because, by eliminating the phrase "in a state of psychophysical impairment”, the sentence enhancement would depend "on mere chance, the occurrence of the accident, completely detached from any disvalue of the conduct”; conversely, according to constant jurisprudence, for the purpose of the sentence enhancement provided for by art. 186, paragraph 2-bis, of the Highway Code, the existence of a link between the driver's intoxication and the occurrence of the accident would still be required.

It would finally be irrational that, on the one hand, art. 187 of the Highway Code "penalizes the consumption of substances per se; therefore, without requiring that anything derive therefrom concerning the time of driving (paragraph 1) or the accident (paragraph 2), and on the other hand, arts. 589-bis and 590-bis of the Criminal Code (rightly) link a higher penalty to an accident caused by someone driving in a state of impairment”.

6.– The Italian Association of Criminal Law Professors (AIPDP) also filed a written opinion as *amicus curiae*, admitted by the same presidential decree of October 14, 2025, in which it hopes that this Court "will declare the unconstitutionality of art. 187, para. 1 of the Highway Code or affirm the mandatory nature of an interpretation of the challenged provision consistent with the principle of offensiveness”.

More specifically, "in order to ensure the maximum uniformity of the individual merits proceedings concerning a criminal offense with significant practical application”, the AIPDP trusts that this Court will, alternatively:

– declare the unconstitutionality of the challenged norm "insofar as it does not provide for the necessity of ascertaining the occurrence of an actual psychophysical impairment resulting from the consumption of narcotic or psychotropic substances in the person who drives”;

– or operate "an interpretation of the provision that allows for compliance with the principle of offensiveness and, mediately, the uniform, reasonable, and non-disproportionate application of the precept, requiring that—in the absence of a reliable generalization of common sense (*id quod plerumque accidit*) capable of justifying the legislator’s recourse to a presumed danger offense—the trial judge ascertain, on a case-by-case basis, the existence of a concrete danger to the protected legal interest by using elements other than mere consumption of a narcotic substance at a time preceding the driving conduct”.

More specifically, the AIPDP dwells on the alleged violation of the principle of necessary offensiveness, highlighting how the elimination of the requirement to ascertain the state of psychophysical impairment makes it possible to punish "conducts radically devoid of any dangerousness, even abstract or presumed, for the legal interest of road traffic safety and, mediately, for the life and physical integrity of road users”. Such legislative choice would be, "correlatively, irrational, disproportionate and incompatible with the rehabilitative purpose of the penalty”.

The *amicus* refers to the joint circular of the Ministry of the Interior (No. 11280) and the Ministry of Health (No. 10180) of April 11, 2025, concerning "Forensic toxicological assessment procedures for verifying the condition of driving under the influence of alcohol or after consuming narcotic or psychotropic substances referred to in articles 186, 186-bis and 187 of the Highway Code”, which, in "surreptitiously reintroducing the requirement of psychophysical impairment omitted by the legislator”, recommends the execution of "instrumental toxicological analyses on biological fluid samples capable of limiting consumption to a defined time period”, suggesting the need to ascertain "a persisting influence of the substance”: a substance that should have been "consumed within a time period close to the driving of the vehicle, such as to suggest that it still produces its effects in the body during driving”. These indications, the *amicus* notes, would not be capable of affecting the challenged provision, since the circular is "a mere internal act of the Public Administration” and not "a source of law – let alone criminal law (art. 25, para. 2 of the Constitution) – nor an integrating norm for the precept”.

Having established this, the AIPDP extensively examines the alleged violation of:

– art. 25, second paragraph, of the Constitution, under the profile of the violation of the principles of necessary offensiveness of the crime, of strict legality (*tassatività*) and determinacy of the criminal precept; as well as

– art. 3 of the Constitution, under the aspect of the violation of the principles of reasonableness and proportionality, and also for conflict with the principle of equality, because the challenged norm, by disregarding the incidence of substance consumption relative to driving, would result, on the one hand, in the differentiated treatment of equally non-offensive conducts, and, on the other hand, in the irrational equation of heterogeneous situations.

The violation of the principle of equality would emerge "even more clearly from the comparison between the new discipline of art. 187 of the Highway Code and the constellation of criminal offenses aimed at criminalizing the conduct of driving by subjects who have consumed substances in the broad sense of altering agents”: art. 186 of the Highway Code, arts. 589-bis, second paragraph, and 590-bis, second paragraph, of the Criminal Code, all offenses that provide for "elements further than the mere fact of prior consumption” (in the first case, a "state of intoxication” evidenced by an alcohol level exceeding 0.8 g/l; in the hypotheses of culpable road homicide or injury, the finding of an "alcoholic intoxication or psychophysical impairment resulting from the consumption of narcotic or psychotropic substances”).

7.– By order of April 8, 2025, registered under no. 125 reg. ord. of 2025, the Preliminary Investigations Judge of the Ordinary Court of Pordenone raised – in reference to Articles 3, 25, second paragraph, and 27, third paragraph, of the Constitution – questions of constitutional legitimacy of art. 1, paragraph 1, letter b), numbers 1) and 2), of Law No. 177 of 2024, insofar as it deletes the words "in a state of psychophysical impairment” in art. 187, paragraphs 1 and 1-bis, of Legislative Decree No. 285 of 1992.

7.1.– The referring judge is seized of the request for a penal decree of conviction against a person charged with the contravention under art. 187, paragraph 1, of the Highway Code, for having driven a car after consuming narcotic substances (opioids), with the aggravating circumstance under art. 187, paragraph 1-bis, of the same code, for having caused an accident.

Hospitalized following the accident, the defendant stated that he had taken three drops of the anxiolytic EN (active ingredient delorazepam) immediately after the incident, "a drug that was regularly prescribed to him”, as well as regularly taking the drug Tachidol (active ingredient codeine) to treat a chronic condition. Toxicological analyses performed on a urine sample showed positivity for opioids at 516 ug/l; analyses on a blood sample, however, yielded a negative result.

The contradiction between the two results, according to the referring judge, would be "merely indicative of the passage of a time interval greater than 24/72 hours” from consumption to the time of the toxicological assessment, given that it would be "scientifically proven […] that analyses performed on biological fluid of the ‘urine’ type allow for the detection of traces of narcotic or psychotropic substances up to several days or weeks after their consumption, while those conducted on blood fluid allow for the detection of their presence only within a narrower time frame, equal to 24/72 hours from consumption”.

Under the current wording of art. 187, paragraph 1, of the Highway Code, the charged contravention would therefore be constituted, as art. 1, paragraph 1, letter b), numbers 1) and 2), of Law No. 177 of 2024 eliminated any reference to the "state of psychophysical impairment” from the offense.

7.2.– Regarding relevance, the *a quo* judge points out that the possibility of concluding the proceeding by issuing a penal decree of conviction, or rejecting the related request, would depend on the decision of the constitutional legitimacy questions raised.

7.3.– On the merits, after briefly mentioning the evolution of the normative framework and the interpretation of constitutional and Cassation jurisprudence regarding the offense in question, as well as its differences from driving under the influence of alcohol (art. 186 of the Highway Code), the referring judge observes that, following the removal of the requirement of psychophysical impairment resulting from the use of narcotic substances from the offense and the subsequent irrelevance of an assessment "in relation to the driving capacity of the acting agent and its qualification in terms of dangerousness”, the criminal norm would be "in conflict with the canons of equality, reasonableness and proportionality (art. 3 of the Constitution), of strict legality, determinacy and offensiveness (art. 25, para. 2 of the Constitution), as well as with the rehabilitative purpose of the penalty (art. 27, para. 3 of the Constitution)”.

No alternative and constitutionally oriented interpretation of the precept would be feasible, which would prevent the illegitimate re-establishment of that element (the state of psychophysical impairment) that the 2024 legislator intended to eliminate, as this would entail a substantial repeal of the reform in Law No. 177 of 2024, contrary to the principles of separation of powers and statutory reservation.

Nor would it be possible to apply the jurisprudence developed during the validity of the previous offense, which "accorded greater evidentiary weight to blood tests than to those conducted on urine, since the privilege granted to the former was inseparably linked precisely to the need to ascertain the normative requirement of the state of impairment, which has now been suppressed”.

Regarding the individual profiles of conflict with the evoked parameters, the referring judge's arguments are substantially superimposed on those made in the orders registered under numbers 93 and 99 reg. ord. of 2025. In particular, the challenged discipline would violate:

– art. 3 of the Constitution, under the profile of the violation of the principles of reasonableness and proportionality, because the anticipatory choice of criminal protection, not anchored to a justification based on *id quod plerumque accidit*, would be clearly irrational, as well as disproportionate to the aims pursued;

– art. 3 of the Constitution again, under the profile of the subjection of different situations to different treatment (that of the "mere consumer of narcotic or psychotropic substances who is fit to drive at the time of the check – subjected to criminal sanction – compared to […] any other subject”) and, at the same time, the subjection of the same treatment to heterogeneous situations ("the application of the same sanction both to the driver who is in a state of actual impairment, and to the one who is physically and psychologically fit to drive”). These aspects would be further amplified "by the evident disparity of discipline currently existing between art. 187 of the Highway Code and other criminal provisions aimed at countering the conduct of driving by subjects who have consumed substances, alcoholic or narcotic, capable of affecting driving capacity” (the comparison is drawn, in this case too, with driving under the influence of alcohol, culpable road or nautical homicide and serious or very serious road or nautical personal injury);

– art. 25, second paragraph, of the Constitution, concerning the principle of strict legality and determinacy, because the current wording of art. 187 of the Highway Code would not allow for adequately selecting the criminally relevant conducts, nor for providing clear indication to members of the public regarding the exact line of demarcation between the area of criminal illegality and that of lawfulness;

– art. 25, second paragraph, of the Constitution again, concerning the "principle of offensiveness and materiality of the fact”, because "the suppression of the requirement of ‘psychophysical impairment’, abandoning the logic of harm to the protected legal interest to embrace a punitive logic based on the so-called ‘law of author’”, would have resulted in the inability of the challenged norm to select the conducts truly harmful to the protected legal interests (i.e., road safety and the safety of its users). Nor could the criminal judge remedy the failure to comply with the standard of offensiveness "in the abstract”, by interpreting the criminal norm according to the criterion of "so-called ‘concrete offensiveness’” (enhancing, for example, "other elements besides the positivity or not to narcotic and psychotropic substances” or distinguishing based on the reason for consumption), since "the judgment of the disvalue of the conduct has already been made *ex ante* by the legislator, precluding any margin of assessment for the interpreter”;

– art. 27, third paragraph, of the Constitution, considering that "the sanction provided for in the face of a non-offensive act deprives the penalty even of its rehabilitative purpose, since a disproportionate penalty can never be felt as ‘just’ by the offender and, consequently, can never lay the groundwork for any rehabilitative path”.

In conclusion, the referring judge hopes for a declaration of unconstitutionality of art. 1, paragraph 1, letter b), numbers 1) and 2), of Law No. 177 of 2024, "with consequent revival” of paragraphs 1 and 1-bis of art. 187 of the Highway Code "in their wording prior to the reform”.

8.– The President of the Council of Ministers also intervened in this proceeding, represented and defended by the State Attorney General’s Office, challenging the inadmissibility and, in any case, the groundlessness of the questions.

8.1.– The questions would lack the requirement of relevance, because there is a lack of factual ascertainment of the conduct object of the charge, as the referring judge has apodictically asserted that the discrepancy in the results of the toxicological tests "is not symptomatic of a contradiction in the evidence”, without "specifying the time within which the contradictory analyses were carried out” and, consequently, without "verifying whether the evidence in the file was such as to lead to a finding of responsibility beyond any reasonable doubt”.

8.2.– On the merits, the groundlessness of the challenges is disputed on the basis of the same arguments developed in relation to the orders registered under numbers 93 and 99 reg. ord. of 2025.

8.3.– On November 26, 2025, the State Attorney General’s Office filed in each of the proceedings a note from the Head of the Department for Policies against Drugs and other Dependencies of the Presidency of the Council of Ministers, with attached two technical-scientific opinions”, respectively on "Driving and ‘psychophysical impairment’ due to the use of narcotic substances” (signed by Professor Sabina Strano Rossi, president of the Scientific Association Italian Forensic Toxicologists Group) and "on the effects of Cannabis use on driving motor vehicles” (signed by Professor Giulio Maira, president of the Atena Foundation and expert of the aforementioned Department of the Presidency of the Council of Ministers).

Considered in Law

9.– With the order registered under no. 93 reg. ord. of 2025, the Preliminary Investigations Judge of the Court of Macerata raised – in reference to Articles 3 and 25 of the Constitution – questions of constitutional legitimacy of art. 187 of the Highway Code, as amended by Law No. 177 of 2024, challenging it insofar as it provides that "[a]nyone who drives after having consumed narcotic or psychotropic substances” is punishable, "in the absence of any specification regarding the temporal period of consumption and the persisting effects of such consumption at the time of driving”.

10.– With the order registered under no. 99 reg. ord. of 2025, the Preliminary Investigations Judge of the Court of Siena raised – in reference to Articles 3, 13, 25, second paragraph, and 27 of the Constitution – questions of constitutional legitimacy of art. 187, paragraph 1, of Legislative Decree No. 285 of 1992, as amended by art. 1 of Law No. 177 of 2024, "insofar as it does not provide for the necessity of ascertaining the occurrence of an actual psychophysical impairment resulting from the consumption of narcotic or psychotropic substances in the person who drives”.

11.– With the order registered under no. 125 reg. ord. of 2025, the Preliminary Investigations Judge of the Court of Pordenone raised – in reference to Articles 3, 25, second paragraph, and 27, third paragraph, of the Constitution – questions of constitutional legitimacy of art. 1, paragraph 1, letter b), numbers 1) and 2), of Law No. 177 of 2024, insofar as it deletes the words "in a state of psychophysical impairment” in art. 187, paragraphs 1 and 1-bis, of Legislative Decree No. 285 of 1992.

12.– The three orders raise identical or closely related questions, such that the joinder of the respective proceedings is appropriate.

The first two (registered under no. 93 and no. 99 reg. ord. of 2025) directly target the new text of art. 187 of the Highway Code, as amended by Law No. 177 of 2024. The third (registered under no. 125 reg. ord. of 2025) challenges instead the amending provision, i.e., art. 1, paragraph 1, letter b), numbers 1) and 2), of Law No. 177 of 2024.

However, all three referring judges complain about the deletion of the phrase – present in the text of art. 187, paragraphs 1 and 1-bis, of the Highway Code prior to the amendments – "in a state of psychophysical impairment”, assuming that this deletion causes the conflict between the resulting provision ("Whoever drives after having consumed narcotic substances […]”) and the multiple evoked constitutional parameters.

The *petita* of the three orders, however, differ.

The Preliminary Investigations Judge of the Court of Macerata, in order no. 93 reg. ord. of 2025, does not formulate a true *petitum*, leaving it to this Court to remedy the alleged harm, which consists of the legislator's failure to indicate any requirement regarding the extent of the time interval between consumption and driving, as well as the presence of persisting effects of consumption on driving capacity.

The Preliminary Investigations Judge of the Court of Siena, in order no. 99 reg. ord. of 2025, instead, hopes for an additive judgment, which would essentially restore the previous requirement of actual psychophysical impairment resulting from the consumption of narcotic or psychotropic substances.

Finally, the Preliminary Investigations Judge of the Court of Pordenone, in order no. 125 reg. ord. of 2025, aims for a declaration of unconstitutionality of the amending provision itself; this would lead, in his opinion, to the automatic revival of the original text of art. 187, paragraphs 1 and 1-bis, of the Highway Code, and thus to the restoration of the abrogated phrase.

13.– As for the admissibility of the questions, the State Attorney General’s Office raised numerous exceptions, none of which, however, is well-founded.

13.1.– Regarding the questions raised by the Preliminary Investigations Judge of the Court of Macerata, five exceptions of inadmissibility were raised.

13.1.1.– First, the relevance of the question would be lacking, because the request for a penal decree of conviction would have erroneously referred to the offense under art. 187, paragraph 1, of the Highway Code, while the charged conduct would be classifiable under paragraph 1-bis, as the order of reference itself shows that the defendant caused an accident while driving his motorcycle.

The exception is unfounded. The referring judge, in fact, identifies as the object of his challenges art. 187 of the Highway Code as a whole (due to an evident *lapsus calami*, in the operative part, indicating a non-existent art. 187-bis), complaining about the elimination – by the 2024 legislator – of the phrase "in a state of psychophysical impairment”: an elimination implemented in both paragraph 1 and paragraph 1-bis, which is clearly considered in the case submitted to his examination. The examination of the file of the *a quo* proceeding shows, moreover, that the request for a penal decree of conviction was made precisely under paragraph 1-bis.

13.1.2.– Secondly, the referring judge would not have explored the possibility of an interpretation consistent with the Constitution of the challenged provision.

This exception is also unfounded. According to the constant jurisprudence of this Court, "[f]or the admissibility of the incidental question, it is sufficient that the referring judge has reasoned […] on the reasons for the impracticability of the adequate interpretation, while whether these reasons are correct or not is an issue that relates to the merits” (Judgment No. 23 of 2025, point 2.1. of Considered in Law, and further citations therein; in the same vein, more recently, Judgment No. 144 of 2025, point 2.1. of Considered in Law). In the case under review, the referring judge correctly fulfilled the obligation to state the reasons why he does not consider an interpretation consistent with the Constitution to be feasible, clarifying that a corrective interpretation, which read the criminal norm "as correlated to a time frame that logically suggests the persisting effect of the narcotic substance”, would introduce a constitutive element "completely extraneous to the literal meaning of the norm […] at the (inadmissible) discretion of jurisprudence”. This is sufficient for the admissibility of the question, leaving the question of the correctness of the interpretative premise from which the referring judge starts undecided here.

13.1.3.– Thirdly, the questions would be inadmissible due to lack of reasoning, concerning the insufficient description of the concrete facts under the *a quo* judge's examination.

The exception is unfounded, as the albeit synthetic reconstruction of the facts made by the referring judge (supra, point 1.1.) allows the assessment of the relevance of the questions to be considered plausible. It is based on the consideration that the ascertained positivity to cocaine following the urine test proves the prior consumption of narcotics (and therefore the defendant's liability based on the provision currently in force), but would not necessarily indicate the presence of psychophysical impairment at the time of driving, which, on the other hand, would be required again for liability for the offense in question if the proposed questions were upheld (on the sufficiency, for the purpose of admissibility of the question, of the mere "non-implausibility” of the referring judge's assessment of its relevance, Judgment No. 154 of 2025, point 2 of Considered in Law, and further references therein).

13.1.4.– Fourthly, inadmissibility would derive from the generality and perplexity in the formulation of the questions, both as to the existence of the alleged violations and as to the constitutional parameters, invoked without "a complete exposition of the reasons suggesting the invoked conflict”, since – moreover – the exact nature of the intervention requested from this Court is unclear.

This exception cannot be accepted either. As is also evident from the summary provided here in points 1.3., 1.4. and 1.5., the questions are reasoned in a precise and detailed manner. As for the alleged ambiguity of the *petitum*, in light of the constant jurisprudence of this Court – "excluding that the *petitum* of the referring judge binds the Court itself (among many, judgments No. 46 and No. 12 of 2024, No. 221 of 2023) –, one can speak of a contradiction in the *petitum*, which determines the inadmissibility of the question, only when the argumentative modalities of the order of reference do not allow for a clear identification of the content and the "direction” of the challenges, hypothesizing interventions of a different and opposing sign” (for all, Judgment No. 138 of 2024, point 4.2. of Considered in Law, and further references therein). The "direction” of the challenges is quite clear here, as they essentially aim to restore the relevance, for the purpose of constituting the crime, of the effects of the consumption of the narcotic or psychotropic substance at the time of driving.

13.1.5.– Finally, the questions would be inadmissible because they seek to solicit an additive intervention from this Court in a matter reserved for the discretion of the legislator.

This exception is also unfounded: whether the legislative choice falls within the discretionary options of the legislator, or whether it has exceeded one or more of the constitutional limits evoked by the referring judge, is an evaluation that pertains to the merits of the questions, and not to their admissibility.

13.2.– Regarding the questions raised by the Preliminary Investigations Judge of the Court of Siena, the State Attorney General’s Office raises two exceptions of inadmissibility.

13.2.1.– In the first place, the reconstruction of the facts would be deficient and lacking, as the judge omitted to state whether the degree of positivity revealed by the toxicological tests "led to that psychophysical impairment in the driver which, in theory, would constitute an essential requirement for a constitutionally oriented reading of the criminal offense”: resulting in a lack of reasoning on the relevance of the question.

The exception is unfounded, because the referring judge – after stating that the defendant tested positive for cocaine in blood and urine tests – clarified that, based on the provision currently in force, the requested penal decree of conviction should certainly be issued, whereas if the proposed questions were upheld, it would be necessary to return the file to the public prosecutor for further assessments, particularly concerning the actual psychophysical impairment at the time of driving. Such reasoning overcomes the test of non-implausibility required by the constant and already mentioned jurisprudence of this Court (supra, 13.1.3.).

13.2.2.– Secondly, the referring judge would have failed to attempt a constitutionally oriented interpretation of the challenged discipline.

The exception is, in this case, manifestly unfounded, since an entire paragraph of the order of reference was dedicated to demonstrating the impracticability of an interpretation capable of reconciling the provision with the Constitution. Whether such impracticability is effective is, once again, an issue that pertains to the merits, not to the admissibility of the questions.

13.3.– Finally, only one exception of inadmissibility was raised regarding the order of the Preliminary Investigations Judge of the Court of Pordenone, which would have insufficiently reasoned on the relevance of the questions, due to the lack of factual ascertainment of the conduct object of the charge. The *a quo* judge would have, in particular, apodictically asserted that the discrepancy in the results of the toxicological tests "is not symptomatic of a contradiction in the evidence”, without "specifying the time within which the contradictory analyses were carried out” and, consequently, without "verifying whether the evidence in the file was such as to lead to a finding of responsibility beyond any reasonable doubt”.

This exception is also unfounded, as the referring judge's reasoning does not appear implausible, according to which, based on the current text of the provision, the finding of the presence of opioids in one of the analyzed bodily fluids (urine) and not in the other (blood) would still be sufficient to prove the defendant's criminal liability, given the proof of consumption of the substance prior to driving, while upholding the questions would require further assessments on the actual psychophysical impairment caused by that substance at the time of driving.

14.– The merits of the questions raised can, therefore, be examined.

According to the referring judges, the current discipline of paragraphs 1 and 1-bis of art. 187 of the Highway Code – centered only on the chronological link between substance consumption and vehicle driving – would violate various constitutional principles, variously declined by the individual orders, but which can be summarized as follows.

In particular, the following would be violated:

– the principle of reasonableness and proportionality stemming from art. 3 of the Constitution, due to the irrational nature of the presumption of dangerousness of driving conduct chronologically subsequent to the consumption of narcotics established by the challenged provisions, without further specifications concerning the extent of the time interval between the two moments, nor the type or quantity of the substance consumed, nor – again – the actual suitability of the substance to cause an alteration of the driver's psychophysical state and driving capacity (thus all three referring orders);

– the principle of necessary offensiveness of the crime, derivable in particular from art. 25, second paragraph, of the Constitution (but also, according to the Preliminary Investigations Judge of the Court of Siena, from Articles 13 and 27 of the Constitution), due to the capacity of the challenged conduct to intercept conducts not truly offensive of the protected legal interests (order registered under no. 125 reg. ord. of 2025), or in any case due to the manifest irrationality of the presumption of dangerousness established by the provision in question (orders registered under no. 93 and no. 99 reg. ord. of 2025);

– the principle of precision, strict legality, or determinacy of the criminal norm derivable from art. 25, second paragraph, of the Constitution, due to the generality of the discipline, which would provide no indication to the judge regarding the time interval that may elapse between consumption and driving, as well as more generally on the demarcation between punishable and criminally irrelevant conducts (orders registered under no. 93 and no. 125 reg. ord. of 2025);

– the rehabilitative purpose of penalties under art. 27, third paragraph, of the Constitution, which would be compromised by the punishment for an act that could potentially be radically non-offensive, even if covered by the abstract offense defined by the challenged discipline (orders registered under no. 99 and no. 125 reg. ord. of 2025);

– finally, the principle of equality under art. 3 of the Constitution, under two distinct macro-profiles:

a) the alleged irrational disparity of treatment: i) between the challenged discipline and that concerning driving under the influence of alcohol under arts. 186 and 186-bis of the Highway Code, which subordinate the penalty to conditions other than the mere ascertainment of alcohol consumption prior to the driving conduct (orders registered under no. 93 and no. 125 reg. ord. of 2025); ii) between the challenged discipline and that provided for by the aggravated hypotheses of culpable road or nautical homicide or injury under arts. 589-bis, second paragraph, and 590-bis, third paragraph (order registered under no. 125 reg. ord. of 2025); iii) between someone who drives without a license and someone who, holding a license, drives after consuming narcotic substances without these causing any alteration in their driving capacity (order registered under no. 93 reg. ord. of 2025); and iv) between someone who drives having consumed narcotic substances that have not caused any state of psychophysical impairment and any other subject who drives a vehicle (order registered under no. 125 reg. ord. of 2025);

b) the alleged irrational equation of treatment between someone who drives having consumed narcotic substances that cause a state of psychophysical impairment and someone who commits the same conduct having consumed narcotic substances, but in the absence of such impairment (orders registered under numbers 99 and 125 reg. ord. of 2025).

15.– This Court holds that none of these questions is well-founded, as a restrictive interpretation consistent with the Constitution and, even before that, with the *ratio* of the challenged provisions, is possible and necessary. This is for the reasons anticipated below, and more extensively argued in the following paragraphs.

Any choice of criminalization by the legislator must be justifiable against the yardstick of the principle of proportionality, as well as the principle of necessary offensiveness (infra, 15.1.).

The multiple challenges raised by the referring judges stem from an interpretation of the challenged provisions according to which they attribute relevance to any conduct of driving a vehicle subsequent to the consumption of a narcotic or psychotropic substance, regardless of when. Such an interpretation would indeed lead to results incompatible with the principles of proportionality and necessary offensiveness of the crime (infra, 15.2.).

However, a restrictive interpretation of the challenged provisions, consistent with their own *ratio* and with the constitutional principles of proportionality and necessary offensiveness, as well as compatible with the text of the provisions themselves, is possible and necessary (infra, 15.3.).

To achieve this result, the area of criminal relevance under the two challenged provisions must be understood as limited only to those hypotheses in which the conduct of driving subsequent to the consumption of narcotics is carried out within a time interval in which it is reasonable to presume that the substances are still capable of producing an effect of alteration of the driver's psychophysical state, such as to negatively affect their driving capacity and thus create a danger to road traffic safety significantly higher than that inherent in any driving conduct (infra, 15.4.).

This interpretation is compatible with the constitutional principle of precision of the criminal norm, which is not opposed to a normative technique that entrusts the judge with the task of ascertaining, in each concrete case, that the conduct criminalized in the abstract by the legislator has created a situation of danger for the protected legal interest (infra, 15.5.).

This interpretation, finally, shields the challenged provisions from all the further defects of constitutionality denounced by the referring judges (infra, 15.6.).

15.1.– The challenges of the referring judges affect two criminal provisions, targeting not – as more frequently happens – the punitive treatment provided for in case of violation, but the very choices of criminalization configured by them. The formulation of the precept by the legislator would be, more specifically, contrary to a plurality of constitutional principles, including – which it is appropriate to examine first – those of reasonableness and proportionality, on the one hand (infra, 15.1.1.), and necessary offensiveness, on the other (infra, 15.1.2.).

15.1.1.– Under the first profile, Judgment No. 46 of 2024 recently underlined that any law from which compressions of the constitutional rights of the person derive requires a precise review by this Court, not only of its general reasonableness, but also – more specifically – of its proportionality to the purposes pursued; and it observed that this review must be particularly attentive in criminal law, given that any criminal law is susceptible to affecting constitutional rights (point 3.1. of Considered in Law; in the same vein *ex aliis* judgments No. 193 of 2025, point 3.1. of Considered in Law, and No. 74 of 2025, point 6.1. of Considered in Law).

This impact occurs, in effect, at three distinct levels.

First, the very existence of a criminal norm, by definition, limits the freedom of action of its addressees, who are precluded from carrying out the conduct sanctioned by the law; and it is not uncommon for the criminal precept to limit, directly or indirectly, the exercise of a right or freedom protected by the Constitution itself.

Secondly, the enforcement mechanism of criminal law by law enforcement agencies, the public prosecutor's office, and the criminal jurisdiction involves significant compressions of the constitutional rights of the person under investigation and then the defendant.

Thirdly, the issuance of a conviction judgment conveys a social stigma on the convicted person, which prejudices their honor and reputation in the eyes of the community; and the execution of the penalty, which ordinarily follows, necessarily involves the compression of constitutional rights, starting with personal liberty: which is called into question not only by custodial sentences, but also by pecuniary penalties, which can be converted, in case of non-payment, into sanctions that compress personal liberty.

All these serious consequences on the constitutional rights of the addressee of criminal law require careful review by this Court of the proportionality of the law itself in relation to its purposes.

In particular, such a review must concern: a) the compatibility with the Constitution of the purpose pursued by the legislator (the legal interest, in the consolidated language of criminal science); b) the suitability of the criminalization to achieve this end; c) its actual necessity (or its non-substitutability with alternative instruments less restrictive of the constitutional rights of its addressees); d) its proportionality in the strict sense: a requirement that refers to the constitutional sustainability of the balance struck by the legislator between the rights affected by the criminal precept and the counter-interests, individual and collective, protected by it (on these "classic” scanions, Judgment No. 1 of 2014, point 3.1. of Considered in Law, and then, especially, judgments No. 184 of 2023, points n. 6.4. and 6.5. of Considered in Law, No. 5 of 2023, point 6.2.3. of Considered in Law, No. 97 of 2020, point 7 of Considered in Law, and No. 20 of 2019, point 3 of Considered in Law; more generally, on the review of the proportionality of the law, *ex multis*, judgments No. 143 of 2025, point 11 of Considered in Law, No. 104 of 2025, point 6.4. of Considered in Law, and No. 14 of 2023, points 13 and 13.1.).

15.1.2.– As for the principle of necessary offensiveness of the crime – of doctrinal origin, but long incorporated by this Court based on, in particular, art. 25, second paragraph, of the Constitution – it requires that the "fact” described by criminal law be human conduct that has harmed or at least exposed a legal interest worthy of protection according to the current constitutional framework to danger. Consequently, the criminal norm itself must be structured in such a way as to strike, as a rule, only conduct that is directly harmful to the legal interest or that, at least, is capable of exposing it to danger ( *ex aliis*, judgments No. 116 of 2024, point 7.1. of Considered in Law, No. 139 of 2023, point 4.2. of Considered in Law, No. 211 of 2022, point 7.1. of Considered in Law, No. 225 of 2008, point 3 of Considered in Law, and No. 265 of 2005, point 4 of Considered in Law, and No. 354 of 2002, point 3 of Considered in Law).

As the State Attorney General’s Office rightly observes, however, the constant jurisprudence of this Court considers both concrete danger offenses – in which the judge is required to ascertain, on a case-by-case basis, that the conduct committed by the agent has exposed the protected legal interest to danger – and offenses variously defined as "abstract” or "presumed” danger offenses, in which, conversely, the legislator merely prohibits conduct, deeming it generally dangerous for the legal interest, without requiring the judge to ascertain that in the concrete case it has actually created a danger for the interest. This second normative technique is not inherently harmful to the principle, provided, however, that the legislative presumption of dangerousness appears itself reasonable and based on reliable generalizations derived from experience, while it remains the duty of the judge to acquit the defendant if the examination of the circumstances of the concrete case clearly shows the absence of any danger to the legal interest arising from the conduct (judgments No. 139 of 2023, point 4.2. of Considered in Law, No. 211 of 2022, point n. 7.1. of Considered in Law, No. 278 of 2019, point 3.1. of Considered in Law, No. 141 of 2019, point 7.1. of Considered in Law, No. 109 of 2016, point n. 8.1. of Considered in Law, and further precedents cited therein).

In radical contrast with the principle of necessary offensiveness of the crime are, however – as noted in particular by the Preliminary Investigations Judge of the Court of Siena – those criminalizations with which one strikes not an offensive "fact” of legal interests, but a "way of being” of the perpetrator of the crime, a mere "personal quality” (judgments No. 249 of 2010, point 9 of Considered in Law, and No. 354 of 2002, point 3 of Considered in Law) or a mere "status” (judgments No. 116 of 2024, points 7 and 8 of Considered in Law, and No. 211 of 2022, point 7.2. of Considered in Law), or even a generic "dangerousness”, which the legal system can ordinarily counter through the application of non-criminal preventive measures, or – but only in cases where the commission of a specific crime, harmful to legal interests, or in the other cases expressly provided for by law (art. 202 of the Criminal Code) has been proven – through the application of a security measure: not through the penalty, which our legal system conceives only as a response to a material and offensive "fact” of a legal interest.

15.2.– According to the referring judges, the challenged criminalizations, amputated of the previous requirement of the state of psychophysical impairment of the vehicle driver, would not comply with these principles.

The hermeneutic hypothesis from which the challenges start is that the currently effective provisions of paragraphs 1 and 1-bis of art. 187 of the Highway Code, in their literal text, criminalize, respectively, the conduct of someone who drives a vehicle, or someone who causes an accident while driving a vehicle, when these conducts are carried out at any time subsequent to the consumption of a narcotic substance.

Such an interpretation is, in fact, not disproved by the preparatory works. The elimination of the phrase "in a state of psychophysical impairment” from paragraphs 1 and 1-bis of art. 187 of the Highway Code was justified in the explanatory report of bill A.C. No. 1435 (which resulted in Law No. 177 of 2024) presented on September 28, 2023, by the Minister of Infrastructure and Transport, XIX Legislature, as follows: "in order to remedy the operational difficulties encountered in charging the offense of driving after consuming narcotic substances, mainly by acting on the assessment tools available to law enforcement agencies […] the state of psychophysical impairment as a prerequisite for typifying the criminal offense, which in fact determined the non-punishability of conducts particularly dangerous for public safety, is overcome”.

Even clearer is the Senate of the Republic's dossier of April 29, 2024, on the corresponding A.S. No. 1086, in which it is observed that the amendment in question entails "the reformulation of the criminal fact, by suppressing the reference to the state of psychophysical impairment and typifying driving ‘after’ having consumed narcotic substances. In practice, a merely chronological link is substituted for the causal link […] The declared intent of the amendment – therefore – is to overcome the application difficulties due to the demonstration of the causal link between substance consumption and the effect of impairment” (emphasis added).

Thus, the mere chronological link between consumption and driving would now be sufficient to trigger punishability, while the concrete extent of this link (the maximum duration of which, in any case, the challenged provisions do not provide the slightest indication: in terms of hours, or in hypotheses of days, weeks, months, or even years) would apparently remain irrelevant.

If such an interpretation were the only practicable one, it would indeed prove incompatible both with the principle of proportionality (infra, 15.2.1.) and with that of necessary offensiveness of the crime (infra, 15.2.2.).

15.2.1.– Regarding the principle of proportionality, it must first be observed that the two challenged provisions aim to protect the legal interest of road traffic safety: an interest that is itself an expression of a synthesis referring to the life, physical integrity, and property of all road users. All these assets, of marked constitutional relevance, are susceptible to being seriously endangered by someone who drives a vehicle in psychophysically impaired conditions due to the use of narcotic substances, and is therefore not in a condition to adequately control the vehicle (or is prone to taking unreasonable risks as a consequence of the weakening of their inhibitions, due to drug use); thus, no doubt can exist about the legitimacy of the purpose pursued by the legislator, which is to effectively counter such conducts, also by overcoming the evidentiary difficulties encountered so far in practice.

Moreover, the choice to prohibit anyone who has consumed narcotic substances from driving a motor vehicle at any time subsequent to consumption could, in itself, be considered suitable for protecting those assets, as prohibiting driving to anyone who has used narcotic substances also makes it possible to intercept the conduct of those who drive while still under their influence.

However, if such a general prohibition were truly unequivocally inferable from the challenged provisions, it would evidently be over-inclusive (for an analogous case, albeit referring to an administrative offense, Judgment No. 104 of 2025, point 6.5. of Considered in Law). It would, in fact, also include conducts not capable of creating any danger to traffic safety, as they are carried out at a time when the narcotic substance has certainly exhausted its effects on the consumer's nervous system.

This interpretation would therefore result in a macroscopic lack of necessity for the limitation, particularly of those spheres of constitutionally protected freedom that are necessarily affected by the prohibition, such as the very freedom of movement and the right to work, the concrete exercise of which in many circumstances and places in our country presupposes the possibility of driving a vehicle (for such an observation, judgments No. 246 of 2022, point 11 of Considered in Law, and No. 68 of 2021, point 6 of Considered in Law, and references therein to the jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights, which likewise emphasizes the importance of the possibility of driving a motor vehicle to exercise professional activities). Alternative solutions are, in fact, easily conceivable that more reasonably limit the area of criminal relevance, as will be discussed further below: with a much lesser impact on the freedom and constitutional rights of the addressees of the norm, and equal effectiveness in terms of protection of the legal interests at stake.

Nor could the argument that the challenged provisions also, or primarily, aim to discourage the consumption of narcotic substances be sustained in support of the literal interpretation from which the referring judges proceed, so that it should be considered reasonable to prevent anyone who has consumed narcotic substances from driving a vehicle, regardless of the time interval elapsed. Such an argument would transform the challenged criminalizations into a tool for countering not so much conducts dangerous to traffic safety, but the consumption of narcotics *tout court*: conducts, the latter, which the legal system certainly discourages, providing, however, under art. 75 of D.P.R. October 9, 1990, no. 309 (Consolidated Law on the discipline of narcotic and psychotropic substances, prevention, cure and rehabilitation of related drug addiction states), only administrative sanctions (including the suspension of the driving license), primarily aimed at encouraging the interested party to undertake a therapeutic-rehabilitative path. The concrete adoption of such sanctions, moreover, must always be understood as subject to a judgment of "suitability, necessity and proportionality with respect to the legitimate purposes of each sanction, in light of the characteristics of the concrete case, and specifically the peculiar situation of the addressee of the measures” (Judgment No. 148 of 2022, point 4.2.5. of Considered in Law), and must be mandatorily revoked in the event of a positive outcome of the therapeutic-rehabilitative path (art. 75, paragraph 11, consolidated law on narcotics).

Faced with these fundamental choices of the legislator, an interpretation of art. 187 of the Highway Code that, for the sole purpose of combating drug use, would end up criminally sanctioning anyone who drives a vehicle having consumed narcotic substances at any prior time, would be vitiated by an glaring lack of proportionality in the strict sense, compressing without time limits the freedom to drive vehicles even for persons who have not used drugs for a long time, without such a consequence being considered justified by the protection of prevailing individual or collective counter-interests.

15.2.2.– As for the principle of necessary offensiveness, it should first be considered that the hypothesis under paragraph 1 of art. 187 of the Highway Code is structured as a pure danger offense, while the aggravated hypothesis under paragraph 1-bis – presupposing that the agent causes an accident – constitutes an offense that is at least partially of harm, without prejudice to the persistent dangerous dimension of the conduct for the life and physical integrity of the generality of all other traffic users.

The previous wording of paragraphs 1 and 1-bis, which required not only proof that the agent drove the vehicle after consuming a narcotic substance, but also that they did so "in a state of psychophysical impairment”, was built around a model somewhat intermediate between concrete and presumed danger. Even that wording, in fact, did not strictly require proof of the creation of a concrete danger to road traffic safety by the agent. However, the requirement of psychophysical impairment still required the demonstration, in the individual case, of an effect of the substance on the person's psychophysical balance, in turn considered by the legislator as an intermediate event capable of immediately endangering the legal interests protected by the norm.

The current wording of the challenged provisions is, instead, apparently structured according to a pure model of presumed danger offense. These provisions textually require only that the agent has driven "after having consumed narcotic or psychotropic substances”: a circumstance on the basis of which the legislator presumes the existence of that danger to road traffic that the criminalization aims to prevent.

However, if the provisions were to be understood, according to the reading from which the referring judges proceed, as referring to any driving conduct subsequent to the consumption of narcotic substances, even after these have certainly exhausted their effects on the consumer's body, the legislative presumption would prove to be completely irrational, since the criminalizations would end up embracing even conducts certainly unsuitable for endangering the protected legal interests, thus striking – as emphasized in particular by the Preliminary Investigations Judge of the Court of Siena – the mere anti-social disposition of the author, which would be demonstrated by prior consumption of narcotic substances. This would entail a violation of the principle of necessary offensiveness of the crime and, therefore, of art. 25, second paragraph, of the Constitution.

15.3.– Contrary to the view of the referring judges, a restrictive interpretation of the challenged provisions – which, moreover, is suggested in various ways by both the State Attorney General’s Office and the Union of Italian Criminal Chambers and the Italian Association of Criminal Law Professors, who intervened as *amici curiae* – is, however, possible and necessary. Such an interpretation appears, in fact, more consistent with their own *ratio* (infra, 15.3.1.), even before being imposed by the requirements of an interpretation oriented towards the principles of proportionality and necessary offensiveness (infra, 15.3.2.), and without being hindered by the text of the provisions themselves (infra, 15.3.3.).

In this regard, it should be reaffirmed *in limine* that, in general, a restrictive interpretation of a criminal provision, by which the criminal relevance of the conduct is essentially subordinated to the finding of requirements additional to those expressly indicated by the legislator, but consistent with the *ratio* of the provision itself, cannot be considered precluded by the principle of legality in criminal matters. This principle, in fact, only prevents the criminal law from being applied to cases further than those covered by the literal meaning of the expressions used by it (judgments No. 113 of 2025, point 4.4. of Considered in Law, No. 107 of 2025, point 7 of Considered in Law, No. 98 of 2021, point 2.4. of Considered in Law), but does not oppose hermeneutic solutions that, conversely, reduce the scope of what is criminally relevant compared to the possible literal meanings of the text of the criminal norm, provided that the result thus achieved is compatible with those meanings.

15.3.1.– Now, starting from the *ratio* of the provisions, it should be noted immediately that, as recalled above, the intentions of the historical legislator underlying the 2024 amendment were perfectly transparent: to eliminate the evidentiary difficulties related to proving the causal link between substance consumption and impairment, and even more so those connected to proving the state of psychophysical impairment itself, which in practice was often based on evidence of questionable reliability.

The normative amendments did not, however, intend to modify the objective *ratio* of protecting public safety – and more precisely the life, physical integrity, and property of all road users – traditionally attributed to the two criminal norms under examination.

Therefore, an hermeneutic effort aimed at selecting – from the very wide range of driving conducts carried out "after” having consumed narcotic substances – only those driving conducts that in fact present a coefficient of danger for those legal interests greater than that inherent in any driving conduct of any road user, which always involves a (contained) risk of accidents to the detriment of third parties, is entirely consistent with this *ratio* and at the same time not in conflict with the specific *intentio legislatoris* underlying the amendment in question.

Such an hermeneutic effort, not by chance, was made by the joint circular between the Ministry of the Interior and the Ministry of Health of April 11, 2025, to which the State Attorney General’s Office itself draws attention. This circular interprets the phrase "after having consumed” restrictively, holding that it must be read as indicating a "close link between the consumption of the substance and the driving of the vehicle”; and it further specifies that this temporal correlation must materialize in a "persisting influence of the narcotic or psychotropic substance capable of exerting negative effects on driving ability” (emphasis added). The circular continues by observing that "[t]he ascertainment of the offense therefore presupposes the execution of instrumental toxicological analyses on biological fluid samples capable of limiting consumption to a defined time period. In other words, it is necessary to prove that the narcotic or psychotropic substance was consumed in a time period close to the driving of the vehicle, such as to suggest that the substance still produces its effects in the body during driving” (emphasis added).

In this way, the circular itself infers from the connection between the textual datum and the *ratio* of the discipline a limitation of the scope of application of the offense.

15.3.2.– Moreover, and above all, the necessity of a restrictive interpretation of the provisions is also imposed by the canon of constitutionally oriented interpretation, which leads the judge to privilege – among the solutions compatible with the literal meanings of the expressions used by the legislator – the hermeneutic solution that harmonizes with constitutional principles, rather than the one that conflicts with them.

According to the constant jurisprudence of this Court, in fact, both the principle of proportionality and the principle of necessary offensiveness of the crime operate not only as criteria for assessing the constitutional legitimacy of criminal laws, but also as criteria available to the ordinary judge for a restrictive interpretation of them, constitutionally oriented (in relation to the principle of proportionality, Judgment No. 113 of 2025, point 4.1. of Considered in Law, as well as, with reference to preventive measures, Judgment No. 203 of 2024, point 4.7.4. of Considered in Law; in relation to the principle of necessary offensiveness, judgments No. 139 of 2023, point 4.2. of Considered in Law, No. 211 of 2022, point 7.1. of Considered in Law, No. 278 and No. 141 of 2019, points 3.1. and 7.3. of Considered in Law, respectively, No. 109 of 2016, point 8.1. of Considered in Law, No. 265 of 2005, point 4 of Considered in Law, No. 263 of 2000, point 3 of Considered in Law, and No. 360 of 1995, point 8 of Considered in Law).

With respect to the provisions currently under review, the over-inclusiveness of the interpretation from which the referring judges proceed must be corrected, in light of the constitutional principle of proportionality, by restricting the scope of application of the challenged provisions to only those cases in which the limitation of the freedom to drive a vehicle – and of the very constitutional rights whose exercise may be concretely conditioned by the exercise of that freedom – proves to be actually necessary to protect the assets of the life, physical integrity, and property of all other road users.

The principle of necessary offensiveness of the crime points in the same direction, which according to the constant jurisprudence of this Court cited above requires the judge to ensure that conduct in concreto entirely unsuitable to cause danger to the legal interests protected by the criminal norm are not subjected to criminal sanctions.

15.3.3.– No obstacle to such a restrictive interpretation, moreover, is opposed by the literal text of the challenged provisions. In fact, the preposition "after” (*dopo*), even in common language, takes on meaning in relation to the context of the utterance. Thus, for example, the phrase "I will come to pick you up after dinner” cannot certainly be interpreted as an undertaking to show up at any time after dinner, but reasonably implies some relationship of (at least relative) temporal proximity.

15.4.– The hermeneutic canons recalled above – restrictive interpretation according to the *ratio* and constitutionally oriented interpretation according to the principles of proportionality and necessary offensiveness – will therefore require that the judge and, even before him, the bodies responsible for ascertaining the offenses under review confine the area of criminalization under examination to driving conducts that are not only subsequent to the consumption of narcotic substances, but which are also carried out within a time interval in which it is reasonable to presume that the substances are still capable of producing an effect of alteration of the driver's psychophysical state, such as to negatively affect their driving capacity and thus create a danger to road traffic safety significantly higher than that inherent in any driving conduct.

In practice, the proof of the offense will ordinarily require that, at a time chronologically close to the driving conduct, the presence in the agent's bodily fluids of narcotic or psychotropic substances be ascertained, which by quality and quantity, in relation to the individual biological matrices in which they are found, are generally suitable, based on current scientific knowledge, to cause an alteration of the psychophysical conditions, and consequently of the normal vehicle control capacities, in an average consumer.

Note: in order to ensure compliance with the Constitution of the challenged provisions, it is in no way necessary to restore – even interpretatively – the normative situation prior to the 2024 reform. Based on the previous wording of paragraphs 1 and 1-bis, in fact, the ascertaining bodies and subsequently the public prosecution were required to demonstrate the existence of an actual state of psychophysical impairment, resulting from the consumption of narcotic substances. The elimination of the requirement by the legislator, who deemed it necessary to overcome the evidentiary difficulties connected with ascertaining this state, cannot be considered inherently contrary to constitutional principles, provided that the scope of application of the criminalization is interpretively limited so as to avoid that the mere finding of chronological succession between consumption and driving is considered sufficient to establish the driver's criminal liability.

In conformity, therefore, with the declared intention of the legislator, such demonstration is no longer necessary. The new *thema probandum* will solely be the presence of the substance in the bodily fluids, and the evaluation of the general suitability of that substance – based on the quality and quantity found – to cause psychophysical impairment in an average consumer.

It should be noted, *incidentally*, that this interpretive solution substantially corresponds to that identified in 2004 by the German Federal Constitutional Court, in application of the principle of proportionality, in a judgment in which it had judged the conviction of the applicant for the offense of driving under the influence of narcotic substances to be harmful to the constitutional rights of the applicant. In the case then examined by the German Court, an amount of THC less than 0.5 ng/ml was detected in the defendant's blood, sixteen hours after the time he himself admitted to having used cannabis. The Tribunal ruled that, according to the scientific knowledge current at the time, the presence of traces of narcotic substances in the blood could not necessarily be inferred as a persistent effect of the said substances on the agent's driving capacity. Therefore, the same Tribunal emphasized the necessity, in order to bring the criminal provision within limits compatible with the principle of proportionality, that a concentration of the substance be ascertained in the concrete case such as to make it possible that the interested party had effectively engaged in the conduct in a situation of reduced driving capacity (second chamber of the first Senate, judgment of December 21, 2004, 1 BvR 2652/03, paragraphs 25 and 26 in particular).

15.5.– Thus interpreted, the two provisions challenged herein avoid the doubt of compatibility with the principle of precision (or "strict legality”) of criminal law, which the jurisprudence of this Court considers, starting from Judgment No. 96 of 1981 (point 2 of Considered in Law), implicit in the principle of legality under art. 25, second paragraph, of the Constitution.

This principle aims to ensure, in the first place, that the addressee is provided with a clear warning about the possible criminal consequences of their conduct, in terms of protecting their freedom of action; and, secondly, that the fundamental choices on the boundary between lawful and criminally relevant conduct are made by the legislator and are not essentially entrusted to the judge, in protection of the organizational principle of the separation of powers (judgments No. 185 of 2025, point 5.3. of Considered in Law, No. 54 of 2024, point 4 of Considered in Law, No. 98 of 2021, point 2.4. of Considered in Law, No. 134 of 2019, point 3.2. of Considered in Law, No. 121 of 2018, point 15.3. of Considered in Law, Order No. 24 of 2017, point 5, and further references therein).

However, the principle of precision does not preclude the legislator from delegating to the judge the task of circumscribing the area of punishability described in the abstract by the normative offense, by requiring him to ascertain in the concrete case a "danger” for the legal interest protected by the norm: a technique expressly used by the legislator in a number of criminal norms, but to which this Court has also sometimes resorted, when it has indicated the path of constitutionally oriented restrictive interpretations of criminal laws under its review (judgments No. 519 of 2000, point 4 of Considered in Law, and No. 65 of 1970), or has integrated the criminal norm by requiring the ascertainment of a danger to the protected legal interest (Judgment No. 108 of 1974).

On the basis of these considerations, it must therefore be excluded that the challenged provisions, interpreted in the sense just indicated, violate the right of their addressees to the predictability of the criminal sanction and, thus, to the "certainty of their free choices of action” (Judgment No. 364 of 1988, point 8 of Considered in Law), nor do they violate the principle of separation between legislative and judicial power.

Under the first profile, the addressee will receive a clear warning from the precepts in question about the possibility of being subjected to criminal sanction if they drive a vehicle at a time subsequent to the consumption of narcotic substances, when their effect on their body can still reasonably be assumed. It goes without saying that they will know that they must refrain from driving until such persisting effect can be reasonably excluded.

Under the profile of the separation of powers, moreover, the demarcation between punishable and non-punishable conduct will remain entrusted not to the judge's political-criminal assessments of the appropriateness of sanctioning certain conducts and not others, but to the application of criteria of a scientific nature, of which the judge is a mere user. It will therefore be these criteria that determine the limits within which the finding of the presence of certain substances in the interested party's body is effectively indicative of a possible persisting effect of the substance on their psychophysical balance, and on their nervous system in particular.

15.6.– Finally, thus interpreted, the provisions in question remain free from the further doubts of constitutional legitimacy raised by the referring judges.

They do not conflict, first of all, with the principle of the rehabilitative purpose of penalties under art. 27, third paragraph, of the Constitution, invoked here essentially ancillary to the challenges focused on the conflict with the principle of necessary offensiveness of the crime. The exclusion of any violation of the latter principle, thanks to an interpretation that is precisely centered on it, also empties of substance the arguments evoked in support of the violation of the rehabilitative purpose of the penalty.

Nor are the multiple profiles of alleged conflict with the principle of equality found.

There is no irrational disparity of treatment between the challenged provisions and those concerning driving under the influence of alcohol under arts. 186 and 186-bis of the Highway Code, which use different normative techniques to protect the same legal interests. The first provision taken as *tertium comparationis*, art. 186, is structured as a presumed danger offense, entrusting the selection of criminally relevant conduct to exceeding alcohol concentration thresholds in the blood. The second, art. 186-bis, requires the judge to ascertain, in each concrete case, an actual state of impairment resulting from prior alcohol consumption, to which can be added (for the purposes of paragraph 2 and following) the further ascertainment of exceeding the thresholds under art. 186. However, no constitutional necessity requires the legislator to use the same normative techniques in repressing dangerous conduct for the same legal interests, but structurally different, due to the different characteristics of the substances in question; provided, naturally, that the minimum requirements of proportionality and offensiveness are respected, in the sense specified above.

Nor is there an irrational disparity of treatment between the challenged provisions and those concerning culpable road or nautical homicide or injury under arts. 589-bis, second paragraph, and 590-bis, third paragraph, of the Criminal Code, which still require the ascertainment of a state of "psychophysical impairment” in the vehicle driver. The legislator has, in fact, not irrationally deemed, in the exercise of its discretion in criminal policy matters, to require a positive ascertainment of this impairment, in order to justify the particularly severe penalty provided for by these provisions for those who have caused the death or serious or very serious injury to others as a result of a driving conduct carried out in that state. However, there is no constitutional reason why this more complex verification should also be carried out for the purpose of ascertaining the contraventional offenses of danger, much more mildly sanctioned, provided for by the provisions under review.

Furthermore, there is no irrational disparity of treatment compared to the conduct of someone who drives without a license: the latter conduct constitutes a mere administrative offense, which penalizes conducts not necessarily causing actual danger to road traffic, and which responds to a completely different logic, such as to render this administrative offense unsuitable to serve as a *tertium comparationis*.

Finally, the alleged disparity of treatment between someone who drives having consumed narcotic substances that have not caused any state of psychophysical impairment and any other subject who drives a vehicle, as well as the alleged irrational equation of treatment between someone who drives having consumed narcotic substances that cause a state of psychophysical impairment and someone who commits the same conduct having consumed narcotic substances, but in the absence of such impairment, both cease to exist at the very moment when a restrictive interpretation of the hypotheses of crime under review is duly proceeded with, which limits their scope of application to only those cases in which the subject drives while still having in their body quantities of narcotic substances capable of producing an effect of psychophysical impairment potentially affecting their driving capacity.

16.– In conclusion, the questions raised are not well-founded, provided that the challenged provisions are interpreted to mean that, for the purpose of the agent's criminal liability, it is necessary to demonstrate that the conduct attributed to him created a danger to road traffic safety.

This implies that, as clarified above (supra, 15.4.), the proof of the offense will ordinarily require that, at a time chronologically close to the driving conduct, the presence in the agent's bodily fluids of narcotic or psychotropic substances be ascertained, which by quality and quantity, in relation to the individual biological matrices in which they are found, are generally suitable, based on current scientific knowledge, to cause an alteration of the psychophysical conditions, and consequently of the normal vehicle control capacities, in an average consumer.

for these reasons

THE CONSTITUTIONAL COURT

having joined the proceedings,

1) declares unfounded, in the senses set out in the reasoning, the questions of constitutional legitimacy of Article 187, paragraphs 1 and 1-bis, of Legislative Decree No. 285 of April 30, 1992 (New Highway Code), as amended by Article 1, paragraph 1, letter b), numbers 1) and 2), of Law No. 177 of November 25, 2024 (Interventions regarding road safety and delegation to the Government for the revision of the Highway Code, referred to in Legislative Decree No. 285 of April 30, 1992), raised, collectively in reference to Articles 3, 13, 25, second paragraph, and 27 of the Constitution, by the Preliminary Investigations Judge of the Ordinary Court of Macerata and the Preliminary Investigations Judge of the Ordinary Court of Siena, with the orders indicated in the heading;

2) declares unfounded, in the senses set out in the reasoning, the questions of constitutional legitimacy of Article 1, paragraph 1, letter b), numbers 1) and 2), of Law No. 177 of 2024, which amends Article 187, paragraphs 1 and 1-bis, of Legislative Decree No. 285 of 1992, raised, in reference to Articles 3, 25, second paragraph, and 27, third paragraph, of the Constitution, by the Preliminary Investigations Judge of the Ordinary Court of Pordenone with the order indicated in the heading.

Decided in Rome, at the seat of the Constitutional Court, Palazzo della Consulta, on December 1, 2025.

Signed:

Giovanni AMOROSO, President

Francesco VIGANÒ, Rapporteur

Roberto MILANA, Chancery Director

Filed in the Chancery on January 29, 2026

 

The anonymized version conforms, in the text, to the original