title: Cannabis in Italy

text: Global exports of hemp fiber were also declining, namely dropping by 46% from an average of 70,000 t between 1948 and 1952, to 38,000 t in 1958. In particular, Italy was the biggest exporter between 1948 and 1952 with 22,000 t of fiber and 9,000 t of tow, followed by India with 22,000 t of fiber, and then by Yugoslavia with 5,000 t of fiber and 7,000 t of tow; however, India was the biggest exporter in 1958 with 11,200 t of fiber, followed by Yugoslavia with 10,600 t, and then by Italy with 10,300 t. The main importers of Italian hemp were West Germany, Switzerland, Czechoslovakia, France, Austria, and the United Kingdom, while Italy started importing hemp mainly from Yugoslavia and India.


title: Cannabis in Italy

text: In 1973, Italy was the biggest importer with 8,238 t, which accounted for 25.8% of the global demand, while no significant export was reported, considering that the total cultivation area was reduced to just , producing 300 t of fiber. The decline of hemp production in Italy was more pronounced in the North, while it was slower in the South, but it was nevertheless irreversible. In particular, Campania accounted for 77% of the national cultivation area in 1958, followed at a significant distance by Emilia-Romagna and Piedmont, with the latter being noteworthy primarily for the production of hemp seeds rather than fiber. In 1991, Italy was still reported as the biggest importer of hemp, while the national production completely ceased by that time. Similarly, world production continued to decline, with the total cultivation area reduced to , while India and China both surpassed the Soviet Union, which was still a major producer nonetheless, to contend for the position of biggest producer.


title: Cannabis in Italy

text: The Law 685/75 introduced the concept of "modest quantity" in order to distinguish those who merely consume drugs from those who push them, with the latter being the ones whom the law was supposed to punish, while previously no such distinction was made. Nevertheless, with the lack of a specific definition for what constitutes a modest quantity of a certain drug, the matter was left to the discretion of the judges, and thus the Supreme Court of Cassation presented guidelines so that judges would reach consistent verdicts. In particular, the guidelines established that a modest quantity did not necessarily refer to a particular quantity of narcotics and that, before reaching a verdict, a court had to clarify the level of drug dependence of the defendant, and to scientifically establish the nature and composition of the confiscated drugs, as well as the average quantity of active principles that could be obtained from them. However, the so-called Iervolino-Vassalli Law, which was included in the Presidential Decree DPR 309/90 of 1990, substituted the concept of modest quantity with the one of "average daily dose", where the maximum quantities that could be legally consumed were defined for each drug by Ministerial Decree.


title: Cannabis in Italy

text: In the context of the DPR 309/90, a mere drug abuser is considered to be a patient in need of rehabilitation, and therefore not subjected to penal system, but they can still be subjected to administrative penalties. Such penalties include the suspension of their driver's licence, gun licence, and passport, for a period of at least one month and at most one year. Nevertheless, the Radical Party led by Marco Pannella successfully campaigned for a referendum that repealed criminal penalties for the personal use of soft drugs in 1993, and thus the concept of average daily dose was eliminated, while the judicial discretion on a case-by-case basis was re-established.


title: Cannabis in Italy

text: In 2006, the controversial Fini-Giovanardi Law 49/06 removed the distinction between hard and soft drugs, and thus made the possession of marijuana and hashish punishable as harshly as the possession of heroin or cocaine, until it was eventually struck down by the Constitutional Court in 2014. In particular, the Law 49/06 tripled sentences for selling, cultivating, and possessing cannabis from 2–6 years to 6–20 years, thus leading to prison overcrowding, with 40% of inmates being jailed for drug-related crimes, although cannabis consumption was never criminalized. Furthermore, the Law 49/06 introduced the criterion of quintifying the amount of active principle within the confiscated drugs, as well as a zero-tolerance policy regarding behaviors and circumstances which could indicate drug trafficking. As a consequence, a crime would be committed if the quantity of active principle was above the limits set by the Ministerial Table, which for cannabis was established at 500 mg, corresponding to a gross weight of about 5 g, or about 15-20 joints.


title: Cannabis in Italy

text: Despite renewed interest in hemp cultivation from the early 1990s onwards, when it started being promoted throughout the European Union, industrial cannabis remained a niche crop for more than 20 years afterwards, with an estimated cultivation area between and in the entire Union. In particular, in 1994 and 1995, the only cannabis plants officially cultivated in Italy were the ones grown at the State research agency "ENEA", under the strict control of the authorities, while research projects that were started in Emilia and Aosta Valley for educational purposes had been shut down.


title: Cannabis in Italy

text: Furthermore, following the cessation of hemp production in Italy, concerns were raised in the European Parliament in 1998, over the recovery and protection of the remaining endangered Italian varieties, as well as the potentially permanent loss of the biodiversity and economic benefits previously derived from the cultivation of hemp. The subsequent response from the European Commission referred to Council Regulation (EC) 1467/94 of 20 June 1994, whose objectives are to "help ensure and improve the conservation, characterisation, documentation, evaluation and utilisation of potentially valuable plant and animal genetic resources in the Community". Further interest in hemp was prompted by Council Regulation (EC) 1251/99 of 17 May 1999, and subsequent implementing regulations, which established a support scheme for farmers growing specific arable crops, from a list that included industrial hemp.


title: Cannabis in Italy

text: As a consequence of these regulations, and thanks to new technologies and innovative applications involving cannabis plants, the production of cannabis for both medical and industrial purposes has seen a resurgence in Italy in recent years. In fact, said EU regulations are specifically referenced in the "cannabis light" Law 242/16 of 2016, of which one of the stated purpuses is to "support and promotion of the hemp sector (Cannabis sativa L.) as a crop capable of reducing environmental impact in agriculture, reducing land consumption and desertifcation and loss of biodiversity, and as a crop to be used as a possible substitute for surplus crops and as a rotational crop". Such law also introduced looser requirements regarding the cultivation of cannabis plants with levels of THC below 0.2%, which came into force in 2017, and prompted hundreds of new businesses to start growing cannabis in several Regions, with the estimated cultivation area increasing ten-fold, from in 2013 to almost in 2018. More specifically, the estimated national cultivation area involves more than 800 farms, mainly spread between the Regions of Tuscany, Piedmont, Veneto, Sicily, Apulia, Emilia-Romagna, Basilicata, Abruzzo, and Sardinia. The size of the individual hemp farms can vary from small patches of in the mountains, to fields spanning more than in the plains, particularly in Campania, and almost all of them use the harvested crops to produce more than one type of end-product. Furthermore, it is estimated that with the potential redevelopment of already-existing greenhouses, which either fell into disuse or were abandoned due to the crisis of the horti-floriculture sector, Italy would have ready access to a further of farm land for the production of medical cannabis within secure environments.


title: Cannabis in Italy

text: At the same time, the area dedicated to hemp cultivation in the entire European Union increased by 75.1%, from in 2015 to in 2019, while the production of hemp increased by 62.4%, from 94,120 to 152,820 t. In particular, with the enlargement of the EU toward the countries of Eastern Europe, the Union became third in the world in terms of hemp cultivation area, after China and Canada. At present, France is the largest hemp producer in Europe, accounting for more than 70% of the EU production, followed by the Netherlands at 10%, and Austria at 4%. In terms of imports of industrial cannabis, Italy reported in 2017 a total of 8 t of seeds for sowing, 884 t of seeds for other uses, and 0.3 t of fiber, while the reported numbers for 2018 were equal to 46, 557, and 11 t, respectively. Such imports were mainly from Canada, France, the Netherlands, Germany, and China. In fact, the certified seeds used for sowing can come from Italian Hemp Associations and Cooperatives, such as "Tecnocanapa", "Assocanapa", and "Federcanapa"; as well as from abroad, particularly Germany, France, and the general area of Northeastern Europe. In terms of exports, Italian hemp varieties have been tested in 2014 as potential candidates for the possible reintroduction of hemp in the United States, after all existing American varieties were eradicated as a consequence of the War on Drugs. The research was conducted at the Agricultural Experiment Station of the University of Kentucky, as well as several university-affiliated privately-owned test sites within the State, after the then Kentucky Agriculture Commissioner James Comer negotiated the release of a shipment of Italian hemp seeds, that had been confiscated by the DEA in Louisville. The local soil and climate proved favorable for the test crops, which reached over in height within three month of planting, and this was seen as an opportunity to create jobs in the agriculture sector, following the decline in the tobacco production caused by the ending of Federal subsidies.


title: Cannabis in Italy

text: At present, the possession of cannabis for personal use is decriminalized and subjected to fines and the confiscation of personal documents like passports and driver's licenses, while its unlicensed cultivation and sale are still illegal, and punishable with a prison sentence between 2 and 6 years, as well as a fine between €26,000 (29,000 US$) and €260,000 (290,000 US$). Nevertheless, according to a 2015 poll by Ipsos, 83% of Italians deem laws prohibiting soft drugs as ineffective, 73% are in favour of legal cannabis, and 58% think that legalization would benefit public finances. In terms of consumption, 25% of people aged 15 to 19 years old reported using cannabis for recreational purposes at least once in 2014. Moreover, according to a 2018 report by the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction, Italy ranks third in the European Union in terms of cannabis use.


title: Cannabis in Italy

text: The popularity of recreational cannabis led in 2016 to renewed legalization efforts in Parliament, where legislation was proposed with the support of several politicians, mainly from the centre-left Democratic Party, the left-wing Left Ecology Freedom party, the anti-establishment Five Star Movement, the anti-prohibition Radical Party, and even a few from the conservative Forza Italia party, as well as members of the Anti-Mafia Directorate. Proponents of the legislation point to the failure of prohibitionism in reducing cannabis consumption and argue that legalizing cannabis would regulate the circulation of cannabis-related products, reduce consumption among adolescents, allow the police and courts to focus their resources on other issues, and deprive criminal organizations of a significant source of revenue by redirecting it toward the State in the form of taxes, similarly to what happened in Colorado after it legalized cannabis in 2012. In particular, the value of the illegal cannabis market in Italy is estimated between 7.2 billion and more than 30 billion euros, while the potential tax revenue from legal cannabis is estimated between 5.5 and 8.5 billion euros. Moreover, the potential GDP boost resulting from a legal cannabis market in Italy is estimated between 1.30% and 2.34%.


title: Cannabis in Italy

text: Nevertheless, legalization efforts were opposed by several conservative and catholic-leaning politicians, mainly from the Northern League party and the New Centre-Right party, who argued that the consumption of cannabis constitutes a health risk and that legalization will not reduce drug addiction. The PD-led coalition government at the time, which included the New Centre-Right, was mainly focused on ensuring the passage of constititutional reforms, therefore cannabis legalization was not considered a priority. After the defeat of the constitutional referendum and the subsequent resignation of then Prime Minister Matteo Renzi on 12 December 2016, legalization efforts stalled in Parliament.


title: Cannabis in Italy

text: In 2016, the "cannabis light" Law 242/16 removed the need for authorization to plant certified cannabis seeds with levels of THC below 0.2%, while the detection of THC levels between 0.2% and 0.6% during field inspections is still considered acceptable, when it can be attributed to natural causes. The law also requires farmers to keep the certification receipts for up to one year, while also prohibiting them to plants the hemp seeds produced with a previous crop, as well as to use the cannabis leaves and inflorescences for edible products. The State Forestry Department is in charge of checking that farmers are complying with the established legal framework, as indicated by European regulations, although other State entities can carry out inspections if it is deemed necessary.


title: Cannabis in Italy

text: The potential revenue from the sale of cannabis light in Italy was estimated to be more than 40 million euros, and by 2018 hundreds of new businesses started growing cannabis in several Regions. Even though these looser requirements were originally intended to benefit farmers growing industrial hemp, with the production being limited to the 75 varieties of industrial hemp certified by the European Union, a lack of clarity regarding the use of cannabis inflorescences effectively created a booming unregulated market for recreational light cannabis. In particular, approximately 1,300 "light cannabis" shops, delivery services, and vending machines have sprung up in Italy, selling hemp inflorescences and leaves as "collector's item". In fact, since the law does not explicitly prohibit the sale of hemp flowers, customers can legally buy them, and then they can simply crumble them, roll them, and smoke them. The aforementioned 0.2% limit for the allowed THC content is considerably lower than the 15-25% range typically found in marijuana, thus preventing cannabis light users from actually getting stoned, however proponents of cannabis legalization are confident that the spread of cannabis light can contribute to the normalization of cannabis overall.


title: Cannabis in Italy

text: Nevertheless, in September 2018, then Interior Minister and Northern League party leader Matteo Salvini issued a memo to law enforcement agencies outlining a zero-tolerance policy towards cannabis retailers. In particular, the directive stated that cannabis products that contain THC levels above 0.2%, or that are made from plants not included in the official list of industrial hemp varieties, must be considered as narcotics and thus confiscated. Moreover, the Superior Council of Health, which provides technical-scientific counsel to the Ministry of Health, recommended in April 2018 to stop the free sale of cannabis light, as a public health precaution. The Council argued that the industrial applications of cannabis, as envisaged in the Law 242/16, do not include cannabis inflorescences; and they also cited a lack of scientific studies on the effects of even small levels of THC on possibly vulnerable subjects such as older people, breastfeeding mothers, and patients with certain pathologies, which prevents them form ruling out possible health risks. Adding to the uncertainty in the cannabis light market, the Supreme Court of Cassation ruled in May 2019 that the sale of derivatives of cannabis sativa which do not fall within the scope of the Law 242/16, most notably oils, resins, buds, and leaves, is illegal under Italian Law unless such products are effectively devoid of narcotic effects. The Court also reaffirmed that only certain agricultural varieties of cannabis are permitted under the Law 242/16, which was meant to benefit farmers growing industrial hemp.


title: Cannabis in Italy

text: In 2019, a team of economists from the University of Magna Graecia, Université Catholique de Louvain, and the Erasmus School of Economics published a study on the effect of light cannabis liberalization in Italy on the organized crime. Albeit light cannabis does not generate hype as illegal marijuana, the study showed that confiscations of illegal marijuana declined with the opening of light cannabis shops. The authors also found a reduction in the number of confiscations of hashish and plants of marijuana along with a reduction of arrests for drug-related offenses. Forgone revenues for criminal organizations were estimated to be at least 90–170 million euros per year. Conversely, the total revenue from the cannabis light market was estimated to be more than 200 million euros in 2020.


title: Cannabis in Italy

text: In July 2008, the Supreme Court of Cassation ruled that followers of the Rastafari religion can smoke marijuana as a meditative herb after a man from Perugia, who was initially sentenced in 2004 to 16 months in jail and a €4,000 (4,900 US$) fine for possession of 97 g of marijuana, was acquitted on religious grounds. In December 2019, the Court ruled that cultivating domestically small amounts of cannabis for the exclusive use of the grower is legal under Italian Law, after being asked to clarify previous conflicting interpretations of the law. The ruling did not specify what constitutes a legally allowed small amount of cannabis, however the defendant involved was initially sentenced by a lower court to one year in prison and a €3,000 (3,900 US$) fine for the possession of two plants.


title: Cannabis in Italy

text: The Court argued that public health is not threatened by a single cannabis user cultivating a few plants in a domestic setting and, in order to justify the assessment of a personal use of the plants, it pointed out the small size of the cultivation. In particular, the Court argued that, given the rudimental techniques used, the small number of plants present, the modest achievable amount of the final product, and the lack of evidence connecting it to a larger narcotic market, the cultivation appeared to be destined exclusively for the personal use of the defendant, and should therefore be considered excluded from the application of the penal code. The ruling came just days after a proposed amendment to the 2020 budget calling for legalisation and regulation of domestic cannabis use, although already approved by the Lower House, was ruled inadmissible by the President of the Senate on technical grounds.


title: Cannabis in Italy

text: In April 2021, a patient with acute rheumatoid arthritis was acquitted of drug pushing after a court ruled that he was allowed to exceed the legal limits of cannabis cultivation, after running out of an adequate supply of medical cannabis due to the COVID-19 pandemic, on the grounds that it was for his personal health use. As of July 2021, another patient with fibromyalgia, for which a daily dose of one gram of medical cannabis is usually prescribed, is currently on trial for the same charge of drug trafficking, after two cannabis plants were found in his house, together with rudimental tools for cultivating, preserving, and weighing cannabis, as well as a stock of the final product sufficient for just above a month of therapy, with a THC content ranging between 0.32% and 2.38%. The defendant lives in Calabria which, similarly to Molise and Aosta Valley, has not yet approved for medical cannabis to be covered by its Regional Health Agency, thus leading to higher costs and a distribution limited to a few pharmacies. Moreover, critics have argued that such charges would lead patients to buy cannabis directly from illegal pushers instead of growing it themselves, since they would risk just a fine, confiscation of documents, and a mandatory rehabilitation program for the charge of possession, as opposed to 6 years in prison for drug pushing. In fact, a third of all the illegal marijuana produced in Italy is reportedly cultivated in Calabria, due to its favorable climate, with the 'Ndrangheta being the leading criminal organization for drug trafficking in both Italy and Europe.


title: Cannabis in Italy

text: In September 2021, a preliminary text was approved by the Justice Committee in the Lower House that would decriminalize the small-scale cultivation of up to four female cannabis plants at home for exclusively personal use. The stated aim of the proposed legislation is to make sure that patients have access to medical cannabis, as well as to combat criminal organizations involved in drug trafficking. The law would also lower the penalties for minor cannabis-related infractions from 2–6 years in prison to 1 year at most, thus distinguishing it from hard drugs like heroin, while it would increase penalties related to drug trafficking to 6–10 years.


title: Cannabis in Italy

text: At the same time, a ballot initiative was launched that aimed at the decriminalization of the cultivation of marijuana, as well as the repeal of penalties for cannabis possession, by amending the relevant laws through a referendum. According to Article 75 of the Constitution, general referendums are allowed for repealing a law or part of it, when they are requested by either 500 thousand voters or five Regional Councils, while neither propositional referendums nor referendums on a law regulating taxes, the budget, amnesty or pardon, or a law ratifying an international treaty are recognised. Therefore, the legislative process regarding the legalization of recreational cannabis can only go through Parliament. Instead, the objective of the campaign was to amend several articles of the DPR 309/90, regarding the "discipline of narcotics and psychotropic substances, prevention, treatment, and rehabilitation of the related stages of substance dependence", which is reportedly responsible for 35% of the current prison population in Italy. The initiative was supported by several pro-legalization organizations, including ARCI and the Luca Coscioni Association, as well as several political parties, including Italian Radicals, +Europa, Possible, Power to the People, Communist Refoundation, and Italian Left.


title: Cannabis in Italy

text: In its first week of operation, the campaign collected 400 thousand signatures in less than four days and reached the required 500 thousand signatures well before the deadline set at the end of September, which would have allowed the referendum to take place as early as spring 2022. The speed at which the signatures were collected was made possible by a law approved in July 2021 that allows for signatures to be collected online, while previously only in-person signing was allowed, and the campaigners continued to collect signatures up until the deadline, in order to make sure that the initiative would not be rejected due to some of them being ruled invalid. In fact, the campaign managed to collect as much as 630 thousand electronic signatures in a single week, 70% of which were from people under 35 years old.


title: Cannabis in Italy

text: As prescribed by the law, the collected signatures were verified by the Supreme Court of Cassation on 12 January 2022, however the Constitutional Court ruled on 16 February 2022 that the ballot question was inadmissible, thus preventing the referendum from going forward. The Court argued that the proposed changes to the legislation would not have affected just the cultivation of marijuana, but also of plants like poppy and coca, from which opioids and cocaine can be derived. These potential changes to legislation regarding hard drugs would have violated international obligations, and therefore were ruled not in line with the constitutional provisions on referendums in Italy.


title: Cannabis in Italy

text: On 2 December 2020, under the recommendation of the World Health Organization (WHO), the UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs (CND) voted to remove both cannabis and cannabis resin from the Schedule IV classification of the aforementioned 1961 UN Convention, while still including them both in the less strict Schedule I category. In its capacity as a serving member of the CND, and in agreement with other members of the EU, with the exception of Hungary, Italy voted in favor of the rescheduling proposal, since it would "allow more research, in line with our evidence-based drugs policy, on the medical use of cannabis and cannabis resin".


title: Cannabis in Italy

text: Among the other recommendations of the WHO, there was the proposed addition of a footnote to the Schedule I section of the Convention, stating that "preparations containing predominantly cannabidiol and not more than 0.2 per cent of delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol are not under international control". However, the proposal was ultimately rejected by a majority of member states for several reasons, including the argument that no action is needed on CBD since it is not currently under international control. In this case, Italy voted against the recommended footnote, citing as reasons the lack of scientific evidence on the proposed 0.2% limit, ambiguous wordings within the draft that could lead to divergent interpretations, and the absence of justification for the proposed different treatment of cannabidiol compared to other non-psychoactive cannabinoids.


title: Cannabis in Italy

text: Cannabis inflorescences are classified as narcotics and their pharmaceutical use is strictly regulated in accordance with the aforementioned UN Conventions of 1961 and 1971, EU regulations, as well as national legislation, including the aforementioned DPR 309/90 of 1990. The cultivation of cannabis plants for pharmaceutical use, as well as the production and distribution of cannabis-based medicine, are allowed only for authorized entities, while the DPR 309/90 forbids both the direct and indirect advertisement of a list of derived substances. Nevertheless, farmers can cultivate cannabis for exclusively non-pharmaceutical purposes, such as the production of fibers or other industrial applications, using certified seeds under the direction of the Ministry of Agricultural, Food, and Forestry Policies (MAF).


title: Cannabis in Italy

text: In November 2015, Italy instituted the Central Office for Narcotics, in accordance with the 1961 UN Convention and subsequent amendments, which instruct countries allowing the cultivation of cannabis for medical purposes to create a state agency for its management. The functions of the Central Office for Narcotics include:


title: Cannabis in Italy

text: The Central Directorate for Anti-Drug Services (CDA) is a joint organization involving the State Police, the Carabinieri, and the Financial Guard, as well as civil administration personnel from the Ministry of Interior, in the fight against drug trafficking. The three law enforcement agencies are equally represented in the Directorate, with the general director being selected every three years from the three agencies on a rotationary basis. The Directorate was originally instituted as the Anti-Drug Directorate through the Law 685/75 of 1975, and underwent several changes over the years, becoming the Central Anti-Drug Services through the Law 121/81 of 1981, until the Law 16/91 of 1991 defined its current structure and functions. The Directorate is made of three main branches, each containing two Divisions.


title: Cannabis in Italy

text: The General and International Affairs (GIA) branch manages multilateral, training, and legislative initiatives, as well as providing technical support to the Judiciary Police. International initiatives are coordinated with the United Nations, the European Union, as well as other agencies including the G7 Rome-Lyon Group, the Maritime Analysis and Operations Centre, Ameripol, the Paris Pact Initiative, and the International Drug Enforcement Conference. The GIA branch manages training and educational activities at both a national and international level through courses, conferences, and workshops; and it also gives technical-juridical advice with regards to bills and regulations on narcotics and drug trafficking.


title: Cannabis in Italy

text: The Studies, Research, and Information (SRI) branch conducts research and intelligence activities, in particular monitoring national and international drug trafficking. The analysis includes local consumption statistics, trafficking routes, production and market areas, concealment methods, demographics of the people involved, and evolution of new narcotics. At the international level, the SRI branch collaborates with the International Narcotics Control Board. It also gathers and processes information from both national and foreign sources regarding drug-related confiscations, arrests, and deaths, subsequently relaying these data to the National Statistics System (SISTAN), as well as using them for internal reports. Finally, the SRI branch offers support upon request in terms of providing bibliographical references for academic and research purposes.


title: Cannabis in Italy

text: The Anti-Drug Operations (ADO) branch coordinates police activities against drug trafficking through intelligence, strategic, operational, and technical-logistical support both at a national and international level. The ADO branch also approves and coordinates undercover operations, manages naval boarding requests against suspicious vessels in international waters, and monitors internet activities related to drug trafficking.


title: Cannabis in Italy

text: The main narcotic substances obtained from the female inflorescences and resin of cannabis plants are marijuana, hashish, and hashish oil. According to the CDA, the major marijuana producers worldwide are Albania, supplying Italy and parts of Europe; Mexico and the United States, mainly supplying North America; and Paraguay, which represents the main distribution center for all of South America; while Morocco represents the main producer of hashish. Moreover, the three main routes for the illegal trade of cannabis-derived substances are from Mexico towards the United States and Canada; from North Africa, through Spain, towards the European markets; and from Albania, through the Adriatic Sea, towards Italy and other European markets. Furthermore, the Italian black market for marijuana is also supplied by the Netherlands, as well as local producers.


title: Cannabis in Italy

text: Since 1998, doctors in Italy have been able to prescribe cannabis products and synthetic cannabinoids for therapeutic use, with a non-repeatable


title: Cannabis in Italy

text: prescription, while the therapeutic uses of THC, dronabinol, and nabilone are recognized since 2007. After the inclusion of the active compounds of cannabis plant origin in the Medical Table by Ministerial Decree on 23 January 2013, doctors in Italy are able to prescribe cannabis-based medicine and any pharmacy, if properly supplied, can distribute cannabis products in the forms and doses defined in the doctor's prescription. Medical cannabis can be used for treating several conditions, and its prescription is allowed when the patient is unresponsive to conventional or standard therapies, while the list of medical applications includes:


title: Cannabis in Italy

text: There are three methods to administer cannabis-based medicine, namely infusions that can be normally sipped, oil extracts that can be spread on bread, and decoctions, the latter being less common since their packaging is more complicated. The reported list of possible side effects derived from the consumption of medical cannabis include tachycardia, hypotension, paranoia, dizziness, reduction in the cognitive development and psychomotor performance, alteration of attention and memory, psychiatric disorders, damage to the airways and lungs, risk of addiction, and weight reduction in newborn babies if used during pregnancy.


title: Cannabis in Italy

text: The cost of medical cannabis is completely covered by the Healthcare system for six medical conditions, while for others it can be purchased from pharmacies at a greatly reduced price. Furthermore, in June 2017, the Ministry of Health established a maximum price for medical cannabis between €8.50 (9.1 US$) and €9.00 (9.7 US$) per gram, in order to standardize the expenses sustained by patients. However, this price cap has resulted in a short supply of the product due to limited profit margins for pharmacies, while regional legislative differences also add to the overall complexity of the cannabis market. For example, the Regions have the ability to decide for which health conditions the drug can or cannot be prescribed, and they can also increase local prices in order to make it profitable for pharmacies to sell medical cannabis (e.g. Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol), or alternatively they can completely cover the cost for patients through their Regional Health Agencies (e.g. Sicily). As a comparison, the cost of medical cannabis imported from the Netherlands is reported between €5 (5.3 US$) and €10 (10.7 US$) per gram.


title: Cannabis in Italy

text: At the time of the legalization of medical cannabis, the cost of the medicine wasn't covered by the State and the drug had to be imported from abroad through the Office of Medicinal Cannabis, primarily from the Netherlands, making it too expensive for the average patient to buy legally at pharmacies, with prices reaching up to €50 (59 US$) per gram, as well as waiting times reaching up to a month. For this reason, then Defence Minister Roberta Pinotti announced in September 2014 that the army would begin growing cannabis plants in a secure room at the Chemical-Pharmaceutical Military Institute in Florence, which is already tasked with the production of orphan drugs both as an application of the constitutional right to health care and as a matter of national security.


title: Cannabis in Italy

text: The military facility manages all stages of the production of medical cannabis, including growing and harvesting the plants, drying and grinding the leaves, sanitizing the final product with gamma rays, and then shipping it to pharmacies and hospitals, all in accordance with the Good Agricultural and Collecting Practices and the Good Manufacturing Practices of the EU. The army production of medical cannabis increased from between 2014 and 2016 to more than in 2017, resulting in a 30% decrease in the cost of the final product. Moreover, the army expanded its cultivation with new greenhouses in other areas of the military facility, in order to reach an estimated production of per year and to keep up with the demand from doctors and patients, which was estimated between and a year in 2017. Furthermore, in November 2019, the Ministry of Health increased the maximum amount of cannabis inflorescences allowed to be produced by the facility from per year.


title: Cannabis in Italy

text: The state-run production and distribution of medical cannabis is the result of a collaboration between the Ministries of Health and Defence, as well as other entities including the MAF; the Regions; the Italian Medicines Agency; the Superior Institute of Health; the Defence Industries Agency; and qualified experts. The aim is to ensure the availability of the raw material; guarantee the safe preparation and use of cannabis-based medicine; prevent the use of unauthorized, illegal, or counterfeit products; and make therapies affordable by reducing the cost of cannabis. In particular, the final price of the product being sold to pharmacies by the military facility, which is just based on the estimated production costs, is equal to €6.88 (7.39 US$) per gram, not including the VAT.


title: Cannabis in Italy

text: The military facility currently produces two types of cannabis-based ingredients, which are then distributed to pharmacies in a minced form to be used in their formulations. The first product is Cannabis FM2, which is similar to the Bediol strain; consists of unfertilized, dried, and milled female inflorescences; and has been available to the Regions since 14 December 2016. The THC content of Cannabis FM2 (i.e. between 5% and 8%) is lower than the levels commonly found in similar drugs sold in the black market, or even in those legally imported from the Netherlands, while its CBD content (i.e. between 7.5% and 12%) is comparatively higher due to its more useful anti-inflammatory properties. There are also minimal contents of cannabigerol, cannabichromene, and tetrahydrocannabivarin, for a total percentage of less than 1%. Since July 2018, Cannabis FM1, which is similar to the Bedrocan variety, has also been available to the Regions, and it shows a considerably higher THC content (i.e. between 13% and 20%), as well as a considerably lower CBD content (i.e. less than 1%). The higher THC content makes Cannabis FM1 more suitable to mitigate the symptoms of conditions like multiple sclerosis.


title: Cannabis in Italy

text: The origins of the Chemical-Pharmaceutical Military Institute in Florence date back to 1853 in the Kingdom of Sardinia, when the General Chemical-Pharmaceutical Laboratory was established in Turin by royal decree, as part of the Military Pharmacy Warehouse, in order to provide the military with the medicine and medical supplies needed, as well as combating diseases like malaria, which was widespread in Italy at the time. After the Great War, plans were made to modernize the Laboratory, and move it to a more central location within the Italian peninsula, in order to improve the distribution of supplies. The current facility, covering about 55,000 m, was thus constructed in Florence, becoming operational in October 1931, and producing several types of medicine, medical supplies, cosmetics, and food products, with a workforce peaking at 2,000 people in the 1940s.


title: Cannabis in Italy

text: Renamed the Chemical-Pharmaceutical Military Institute in 1976, beside the production of medical cannabis with hydroponic cultures, the institute also produces five different orphan drugs, as well as maintaining the national stockpile of antidotes in case of mass poisoning, terrorist attacks, and nuclear disasters, in collaboration with the Ministry of Health which manages a net of warehouses located in each Region. In particular, the facility was involved in relief efforts during several natural and man-made disasters, including the Florence flood of 1966, the Friuli earthquake of 1976, the Irpinia earthquake of 1980, as well as the Chernobyl nuclear disaster of 1986, for which the institute produced 500 thousand pills of potassium iodide in less than 24 hours, in order to combat the thyroid damage caused by Iodine-131. The facility has also been involved in the production of medicine and medical supplies for international assistance, such as during the Romanian revolution of December 1989.


title: Cannabis in Italy

text: The military facility is a non-profit institute, operating on a balanced budget since 2008 and reinvesting any surplus into research and production, and collaborating with several Italian universities in several fields of research and education. In order to avoid unfair competition with the private sector, the facility mainly focuses on the research and production of unprofitable drugs used to cure rare diseases, which are defined as affecting just one every 2,000 people, although possible revenue may still be obtained from exporting such drugs, with potential customers numbering at least 400 million people worldwide. With regards to the production of medical cannabis, the facility is looking for a public–private partnership in order to increase the overall production, possibly reaching a year, thus covering the national demand while also providing export opportunities.


title: Cannabis in Italy

text: The potential revenue from medicinal cannabis is estimated to be more than 1.4 billion euros, with the internal market creating at least 10,000 jobs and reducing the dependence on imports. In February 2021, "Bio Hemp Farming", which is a consortium between the "Bio Hemp Trade" company and the "Palma d'Oro" cooperative, became the first private entity in Italy to be granted authorization by the Ministry of Health to grow medical cannabis and to extract its active principles for pharmaceutical purposes. The consortium currently manages two different sites for growing medical cannabis, with a total cultivation area of , in Cerignola, Apulia. The leaves and inflorescences harvested from these sites are sent to two pharmaceutical laboratories for the extraction of cannabidiol for medical purposes, while the stems and fiber are instead used for industrial purposes, such as the production of paper, yarns, or biomaterial for construction. An innovative method implemented by the consortium, for the extraction of active principles from medical cannabis, is a cryogenic process in which the low temperatures allow to reduce the preparation time for the final product from 2 or 3 days to about 15 minutes.


title: Cannabis in Italy

text: The Ministry of Health also publishes consumption statistics for medical cannabis both at a national and a regional level, based on regional distribution requests and the authorized sale of the product, and the military facility determines its production quotas by taking into account the consumption data from the previous two years, as well as the yearly increases. The annual legal consumption of medical cannabis has grown from in 2013 to nearly 10 times that in 2017, and the demand is expected to further quadruple as the value of cannabis is more widely understood by doctors. The high demand caused pharmacies throughout Italy to run out of medical cannabis by September 2017, prompting many patients with prescriptions to turn to the black market, while in January 2018 the importation of cannabis was extended to Canada.


title: Cannabis in Italy

text: In October 2019, the first public clinic specifically dedicated to the prescription of medical cannabis was established in Naples by the University of Campania, in order to facilitate access to it by patients, who previously had to rely on either a private clinic at a cost, or a specialist familiar with cannabis-based drugs. As of March 2021, it is estimated that more than 2 million patients in Italy could benefit from medical cannabis, while the total needs are estimated to be at least per year. However, only a few tens of thousands of patients have access to cannabis-based drugs, while the COVID-19 pandemic has affected both the importation and the distribution of the medicine. In regards to international travel, a decree issued by the Ministry of Health on 16 November 2007 details all the rules and procedures that should be followed, in order to allow the carrying of small quantities of medical preparations containing narcotic drugs and psychotropic substances for personal use. In particular, whether they are leaving or entering Italy, travellers carrying small quantities of medical preparations that contain internationally controlled substances are required to hold certain documents, such as a valid medical prescription, attesting that such preparations were lawfully obtained in the country of departure.


title: Cannabis in Italy

text: The cultivation of industrial hemp with minimal levels of psychoactive compounds has several commercial applications, including food, fabrics, clothing, biofuel, building materials, and animal feed. In Italy, certified hemp plants can be used for both industrial and ornamental purposes, however food products can only be derived from the hemp seeds, since they have no THC content, while the consumption of hemp flowers and leaves is still prohibited. On the other hand, the hemp seeds reportedly contain all essential amino acids in optimal proportions and in an easily digestible form, as well as high levels of protein and considerable amounts of fibers, vitamins, Omega-3, and minerals; and edible products include biscuits, taralli, bread, flour, anti-inflammatory oil, ricotta, tofu, and beer. The elevated protein content also makes cannabis-based food a suitable meat replacement for vegetarians, while its intense flavour has even been used for gelato, chocolate bars, and pastries. Considering that the demand for hemp-based food was estimated in 2021 to have grown by 500% since 2017, the production chain derived from hemp could significantly grow the Italian food industry, which is worth 50 billion euros in exports alone and is considered one of the pillars of the Italian economy.


title: Cannabis in Italy

text: In regard to the construction industry, building materials that can be derived from hemp include mortar, plaster, finishing products, thermally insulating panels, bricks, and ecobricks, as well as hemp-cement and hemp-lime biocomposites. Moreover, hemp concrete is a carbon sequester, since the amount of carbon stored in the material is higher than the emissions generated during its production, and it continues to store carbon during the building's life. This could have significant applications in Italy, where the construction sector is worth 237 billion euros, and alone is responsible for 30% of the total CO₂ emissions in the country.


title: Cannabis in Italy

text: Other hemp-derived products include oils used in cosmetics, wax, paint, soap, detergents, paper, packaging materials, pellet fuels for a clean combustion, as well as natural resins and fabrics that can be used for clothing due to their thermal properties, and for furnitures due to their resistance. Moreover, hemp paper is considered to be a more sustainable alternative to paper made from wood-pulp, since hemp stalks only take up to five months to mature, while hemp paper does not necessarily require toxic bleaching chemicals, and it can be recycled up to seven or eight times. Furthermore, as a good substitute for plastic due to their light weight and durability, hemp-derived products can be used in different sectors, such as car manufacturing, railway, aviation, and aerospace.


title: Cannabis in Italy

text: Another significant application of industrial cannabis is soil decontamination through phytoremediation, a process in which contaminants are absorbed by the fast-growing roots of hemp plants, which store the toxins or even transform them into a harmless substance, without the need of removing and processing large quantities of soil, as with more traditional methods. Cannabis plants are particularly suitable for phytoremediation, since their roots have a high resistance to heavy metals and therefore they can store them in higher quantities (e.g. more than 100 mg/kg in the case of cadmium), with the younger roots producing phytochelatins for detoxification after the excessive absorption of these metals.


title: Cannabis in Italy

text: Examples of applications include the removal of radioactive strontium and cesium from areas affected by the Chernobyl nuclear disaster of 1986, for which the pilot project started in 1998; as well as the removal of toxic chemical dioxins from farm lands and grazing fields around the Ilva steel plant near Taranto, with the project starting in 2012 after the establishment in 2010 of an exclusion zone for grazing livestock up to from the plant, due to the high levels of dioxins, lead, nickel, and tens of other toxic substances in the ground. Other similar projects have been tested in several sites in Brescia, in Sardinia, and in the "Land of Pyres" near Naples.


title: Cannabis in Italy

text: Further environmental benefits of cannabis cultivation derive from the fact that, among the other commonly grown crops, hemp plants reportedly have one of the lowest impact on their surroundings, since in most cases they do not require herbicides, insecticides, or fungicides due to the lack of natural enemies and few harmful pests, thus resulting in a higher biodiversity in terms of the local wildlife and insects; they have a minimal need for fertilizers and necessitate far less water than cotton; and they provide the soil with a good amount of organic matter, consisting of a significant amount of fallen foliage, as well as an extensive and deep-reaching root system. Given this significant soil enrichment, when turning the cultivation within a field from cannabis plants to other crops, the resulting yield tend to significantly increase with respect to more traditional crop rotations. For example, in some cases, the production of wheat can increase by as much as 20% with respect to what it would have been, had the same field previously been growing either grass or chard. Furthermore, hemp plants can help to break the cycle of diseases when used in crop rotation, their fast growth and shading capacity prevent the growth of weeds, and the dense foliage just three weeks after germination constitutes a natural soil cover, which reduces water loss and protects against soil erosion.


title: Cannabis in Italy

text: Hemp plants also consume a significant amount of CO₂, so much so that the gas is sometimes artificially added to indoor cultivations in order to increase the resulting yield. This carbon capture quality results in a significant plant growth rate, as much as in three months, and can have significant applications in the removal of CO₂ from the atmosphere, with a hemp field spanning just being able to sequester between 9 and 15 t of CO₂ after just five months. In fact, hemp is seen as a potential new protagonist of Italian agriculture, in order to achieve the objectives of EU 2030, which aim at a 40% decrease in greenhouse gas emissions compared to 1990.


title: Cannabis in Italy

text: In 2016, Italy removed the need for authorization to grow certified hemp with levels of THC below 0.2%, while also providing tax incentives and including a research and development funding up to €700,000 (826,000 US$) per year from the MAF. Moreover, a Common Agricultural Policy payment ranging between €250 (285 US$) and €400 (457 US$) per hectare can be granted to Italian hemp growers, and this does not include further possible local funding independently allocated by the various Regions and comuni. In regard to research and development, as opposed to farmers, the aforementioned Law 242/16 allows public research institutes to reproduce for a year the certified hemp seeds that were purchased in the previous year. In particular, the replanted seeds can be used to grow small amounts of hemp for either demonstrative, experimental, or cultural purposes, which are nevertheless subject to communication to the MAF. Furthermore, the legislation also encourages educational activities, such as training for those who operate in the supply chain for industrial cannabis, in order to illustrate the properties of hemp plants, as well as their use in the agronomic, agroindustrial, nutraceutical, bio-building, biocomponent, and packaging fields.


title: Cannabis in Italy

text: In fact, the aim of the Law 242/16 is to stimulate the production of industrial hemp in the country, as well as to offer an alternative to the cultivation of wheat for farmers damaged by low prices, desiccated lands, and competition from large corporations importing grain from abroad. In particular, the potential profit from the cultivation of hemp in Italy is estimated between €600 (700 US$) and more than €2,500 (2,900 US$) per hectare, while the estimated yield for durum wheat is equal to €300 (350 US$) per hectare. Moreover, as a consequence of the increasing number of farmers turning to hemp cultivations, the overall production of durum wheat in Italy decreased by more than 4% in 2017. Approximately 80% of the hemp produced in Italy is reportedly destined to the food industry, with an estimated yeld for the production of hemp seeds between and , while the remaining 20% is utilized for various industrial purposes, including green buildings, cosmetics, and the nutraceutical sector.


title: Cannabis in Italy

text: The main hemp varieties cultivated in Italy include "Antal", "Carmagnola", "Carmagnola Selezionata", "Dioica 88", "Eletta Campana", "Fedora 19", "Felina 32", "Fibranova", "Finola", "Futura 75", "Juzo 31", "Kompolti", "Superfibra", "Tiborszallasi", "Tisza", and "Uso 31". The "Fibranova" cultivar was developed in the 1950s as a cross between "Bredemann Eletta" and "Carmagnola", the "Bredemann Eletta" variety was developed at the Max Planck Institut using hemp strains originating from Northern and Central Russia, while the "Eletta Campana" resulted from a cross between the "Carmagnola" landrace and German cultivars, most likely "Fibridia". Nevertheless, producers of hemp fiber in Italy still face significant competition from the low-price fiber produced in China, as well as other Asian countries. This competition is reportedly contributing to the prevalence in Italy of cannabis cultivations aimed at the production of inflorescences, as opposed to fiber, since the wholesale of flowers from cannabis sativa can result in a profit between €300 (350 US$) and €1,500 (1800 US$) per kilogram, depending on the quality, and can yield as much as of inflorescences.


title: Cannabis in Italy

text: In February 2022, a collaboration protocol was signed between "Coldiretti Toscana" and the Vecchiano start-up "CanapaFiliera", which aims to revamp the hemp industry in Tuscany. In particular, the agreement provides for of farm land between Lucca and Pisa to be dedicated to the production of high-quality hemp fiber, that would then be used in the paper industry, clothing industry, and sustainable architecture. More specifically, the start-up would provide the seeds to the agricultural businesses participating in the project, which would then manage the cultivation of hemp as a rotational crop between the months of March and July, as part of a circular economy model.


title: Multivariate statistics

text: Multivariate statistics is a subdivision of statistics encompassing the simultaneous observation and analysis of more than one outcome variable.


title: Multivariate statistics

text: Multivariate statistics concerns understanding the different aims and background of each of the different forms of multivariate analysis, and how they relate to each other. The practical application of multivariate statistics to a particular problem may involve several types of univariate and multivariate analyses in order to understand the relationships between variables and their relevance to the problem being studied.


title: Multivariate statistics

text: In addition, multivariate statistics is concerned with multivariate probability distributions, in terms of both


title: Multivariate statistics

text: Certain types of problems involving multivariate data, for example simple linear regression and multiple regression, are "not" usually considered to be special cases of multivariate statistics because the analysis is dealt with by considering the (univariate) conditional distribution of a single outcome variable given the other variables.


title: Multivariate statistics

text: Multivariate analysis (MVA) is based on the principles of multivariate statistics. Typically, MVA is used to address the situations where multiple measurements are made on each experimental unit and the relations among these measurements and their structures are important. A modern, overlapping categorization of MVA includes:


title: Multivariate statistics

text: Multivariate analysis can be complicated by the desire to include physics-based analysis to calculate the effects of variables for a hierarchical "system-of-systems". Often, studies that wish to use multivariate analysis are stalled by the dimensionality of the problem. These concerns are often eased through the use of surrogate models, highly accurate approximations of the physics-based code. Since surrogate models take the form of an equation, they can be evaluated very quickly. This becomes an enabler for large-scale MVA studies: while a Monte Carlo simulation across the design space is difficult with physics-based codes, it becomes trivial when evaluating surrogate models, which often take the form of response-surface equations.


title: Multivariate statistics

text: There is a set of probability distributions used in multivariate analyses that play a similar role to the corresponding set of distributions that are used in univariate analysis when the normal distribution is appropriate to a dataset. These multivariate distributions are:


title: Multivariate statistics

text: The Inverse-Wishart distribution is important in Bayesian inference, for example in Bayesian multivariate linear regression. Additionally, Hotelling's T-squared distribution is a multivariate distribution, generalising Student's t-distribution, that is used in multivariate hypothesis testing.


title: Multivariate statistics

text: Anderson's 1958 textbook," An Introduction to Multivariate Statistical Analysis", educated a generation of theorists and applied statisticians; Anderson's book emphasizes hypothesis testing via likelihood ratio tests and the properties of power functions: admissibility, unbiasedness and monotonicity.


title: Multivariate statistics

text: MVA once solely stood in the statistical theory realms due to the size, complexity of underlying data set and high computational consumption. With the dramatic growth of computational power, MVA now plays an increasingly important role in data analysis and has wide application in OMICS fields.


title: Multivariate statistics

text: There are an enormous number of software packages and other tools for multivariate analysis, including:


title: Claire Clairmont

text: Clara Mary Jane Clairmont (27 April 1798 – 19 March 1879), or Claire Clairmont as she was commonly known, was the stepsister of the writer Mary Shelley and the mother of Lord Byron's daughter Allegra. She is thought to be the subject of a poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley.


title: Claire Clairmont

text: Clairmont was born in 1798 in Brislington, near Bristol, England, the second child and only daughter of Mary Jane Vial Clairmont. Throughout her childhood, she was known as Jane. In 2010 the identity of her father was discovered to be John Lethbridge (1746–1815, after 1804 Sir John Lethbridge, 1st Baronet) of Sandhill Park, near Taunton in Somerset. Her mother had identified him as a "Charles Clairmont", adopting the name Clairmont for herself and her children to disguise their illegitimacy. It appears that the father of her first child, Charles, was Charles Abram Marc Gaulis, "a merchant and member of a prominent Swiss family, whom she met in Cadiz".


title: Claire Clairmont

text: In December 1801, when Clairmont was three years old, her mother married a neighbour, the writer and philosopher William Godwin. This brought her two stepsisters: Godwin's daughter, later Mary Shelley, only eight months her senior, and his stepdaughter Fanny Imlay, a couple of years older. Both were the daughters of Mary Wollstonecraft, who had died four years before, but whose presence continued to be felt in the household. The new couple soon became the parents of a son, which completed the family.


title: Claire Clairmont

text: All five children were influenced by Godwin's radical anarchist philosophical beliefs. Both parents were well-educated and they co-wrote children's primers on Biblical and classical history, published the Juvenile Library, and ran a bookshop. Godwin encouraged all of his children to read widely and give lectures from early childhood.


title: Claire Clairmont

text: Mary Jane Clairmont was a sharp-tongued woman, who often quarrelled with Godwin and favoured her own children over her husband's. She contrived to send her volatile and emotionally intense daughter to boarding school for a time, so providing her with more formal education than her stepsisters. Unlike Mary, Claire Clairmont was fluent in French as a teenager and was later credited with fluency in five languages. Despite their different treatment, the girls grew close and remained in contact for the rest of their lives.


title: Claire Clairmont

text: At 16, Clairmont was a lively brunette with a good singing voice and a hunger for recognition. Her home life had become increasingly tense as her stepfather William Godwin sank deeper into debt and her mother's relations with Godwin's daughter Mary became more strained. Clairmont aided her stepsister's clandestine meetings with Percy Bysshe Shelley, who had professed a belief in free love and soon left his own wife, Harriet, and two small children to be with Mary. When Mary ran away with Shelley in July 1814, Clairmont went with them. Clairmont's mother traced the group to an inn in Calais, but could not make Clairmont go home with her. Godwin needed the financial assistance that the aristocratic Shelley could provide.


title: Claire Clairmont

text: Clairmont remained in the Shelley household in their wanderings across Europe. The three young people traipsed across war-torn France and into Switzerland, fancying themselves as characters in a romantic novel, as Mary Shelley later recalled, but always reading widely, writing, and discussing the creative process. On the journey, Clairmont read Rousseau, Shakespeare and the works of Mary's mother, Mary Wollstonecraft. "What shall poor Cordelia do – Love & be silent," Clairmont wrote in her journal while reading "King Lear". "Oh [th]is is true – Real Love will never [sh]ew itself to the eye of broad day – it courts the secret glades." Clairmont's emotions were so stirred by Cordelia that she had one of her "horrors", a hysterical fit, Mary Shelley recorded in her own journal entry for the same day. Clairmont, who was surrounded by poets and writers, also made her own literary attempts. During the summer of 1814, she started a story titled "The Idiot", which has since been lost. In 1817–1818, she wrote a book, which Percy Bysshe Shelley tried without success to have published. Although Clairmont lacked the literary talent of her stepsister and brother-in-law, she always longed to take centre stage. It was during this period that she changed her name from "Jane", first to "Clara" and finally to the more romantic-sounding "Claire".


title: Claire Clairmont

text: Any romantic designs Clairmont might have had on Shelley were frustrated initially, but she did bring the Shelleys into contact with Lord Byron, with whom she entered into an affair before he left England in 1816 to live abroad. (A year marked by agricultural failures and widespread European famine, but also of significant literary advances as the Godwin-Shelley-Byron circle holed up indoors, 1816 would later be known as the "year without a summer".) Clairmont hoped to become a writer or an actress and wrote to Byron asking for "career advice" in March 1816, when she was almost 18. Byron was a director at the Drury Lane Theatre. Clairmont later followed up her letters with visits, sometimes bringing Mary, whom she seemed to suggest Byron might also find attractive. "Do you know I cannot talk to you when I see you? I am so awkward and only feel inclined to take a little stool and sit at your feet," Clairmont wrote to Byron. She "bombarded him with passionate daily communiqués," telling him he need only accept "that which it has long been the passionate wish of my heart to give you." She arranged for them to meet at a country inn. Byron, in a depressed state after the breakup of his marriage to Annabella Milbanke and the scandal over his relationship with his half-sister Augusta Leigh, made it very clear to Clairmont before he left that she would not be a part of his life, but she remained determined to change his mind.


title: Claire Clairmont

text: She convinced Mary and Percy Shelley that they should follow Byron to Switzerland, where they met him and his personal physician, John William Polidori, at the Villa Diodati by Lake Geneva. It is unknown whether Clairmont knew she was pregnant with Byron's child at the commencement of the trip, but it soon became apparent to both her travelling companions and to Byron not long after their arrival at his door. At first he maintained his refusal of Clairmont's companionship and allowed her to be in his presence only in the company of the Shelleys; later, they resumed their sexual relationship for a time in Switzerland. Clairmont and Mary also made fair copies of Byron's current work-in-progress, "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage".


title: Claire Clairmont

text: Clairmont was the only lover, other than Caroline Lamb, whom Byron referred to as a "little fiend". Confessing the affair in a letter to his half-sister Augusta Leigh, Byron wrote:


title: Claire Clairmont

text: What could I do? – a foolish girl – in spite of all I could say or do – would come after me – or rather went before me – for I found her here... I could not exactly play the Stoic with a woman – who had scrambled eight hundred miles to unphilosophize me."


title: Claire Clairmont

text: You know – & I believe saw once that odd-headed girl [Claire Clairmont] – who introduced herself to me shortly before I left England – but you do not know – that I found her with Shelley and her sister at Geneva – I never loved her nor pretended to love her – but a man is a man – & if a girl of eighteen comes prancing to you at all hours of the night – there is but one way – the suite of all this is that she was with "child" – & returned to England to assist in peopling that desolate island... This comes of "putting it about" (as Jackson calls it) & be dammed to it – and thus people come into the world.


title: Claire Clairmont

text: Clairmont would later say that her relationship with Byron had given her only a few minutes of pleasure, but a lifetime of trouble.


title: Claire Clairmont

text: The group left Byron in Switzerland at the end of the summer and returned to England. Clairmont took up residence in Bath and in January 1817 she gave birth to a daughter, Alba, whose name was eventually changed to Allegra. Throughout the pregnancy, Clairmont had written long letters to Byron, pleading for his attention and a promise to care for her and the baby, sometimes making fun of his friends, reminding him how much he had enjoyed making love to her, and sometimes threatening suicide. Byron, who by this time hated her, ignored the letters. The following year, Clairmont and the Shelleys left England and journeyed once more to Byron, who now resided in Italy. Clairmont felt that the future Byron could provide for their daughter would be greater than any she herself would be able to grant the child and therefore, wished to deliver Allegra into his care.


title: Claire Clairmont

text: Upon arriving in Italy, Clairmont was again refused by Byron. He arranged to have Allegra delivered to his house in Venice and agreed to raise the child on the condition that Clairmont keep her distance from him. Clairmont reluctantly gave Allegra over to Byron.


title: Claire Clairmont

text: Clairmont may have been sexually involved with Percy Bysshe Shelley at various periods, though Clairmont's biographers, Gittings and Manton, find no hard evidence. Their friend Thomas Jefferson Hogg joked about "Shelley and his two wives", Mary and Claire, a remark that Clairmont recorded in her own journal. Clairmont was also entirely in sympathy, more so than Mary, with Shelley's theories about free love, communal living, and the right of a woman to choose her own lovers and initiate sexual contact outside marriage. She seemed to conceive of love as a "triangle" and enjoyed being the third. She had also formed a close friendship with Shelley, who called her "my sweet child," and she both inspired and fed off his work.


title: Claire Clairmont

text: Mary Shelley's early journals record several times when Clairmont and Shelley shared visions of Gothic horror and let their imaginings take flight, stirring each others' emotions to the point of hysteria and nightmares. In October 1814, Shelley deliberately frightened Clairmont by assuming a particularly sinister and horrifying facial expression. "How horribly you look... Take your eyes off!" she cried. She was put to bed after yet another of her "horrors". Shelley described her expression to Mary as "distorted most unnaturally by horrible dismay". In the autumn of 1814, Clairmont and Shelley also discussed forming "an association of philosophical people" and Clairmont's conception of an idealized community in which women were the ones in charge.


title: Claire Clairmont

text: Mary Shelley revised this poem, completely altering the first two stanzas, when she included it in a posthumous collection of Shelley's works published in 1824. In Shelley's "Epipsychidion", some scholars believe that he is addressing Clairmont as his:


title: Claire Clairmont

text: At the time Shelley wrote the poem, in Pisa, Clairmont was living in Florence, and the lines may reveal how much he missed her.


title: Claire Clairmont

text: I am perfectly convinced in my own mind that Shelley never had an improper connexion with Claire... we lived in lodgings where I had momentary entrance into every room and such a thing could not have passed unknown to me... I do remember that Claire did keep to her bed there for two days – but I attended on her – I saw the physician – her illness was one that she had been accustomed to for years – and the same remedies were employed as I had before ministered to her in England.


title: Claire Clairmont

text: The infant Elena was placed with foster parents and later died on 10 June 1820. Byron believed the rumours about Elena and used them as one more reason not to let Clairmont influence Allegra.


title: Claire Clairmont

text: Clairmont was granted only a few brief visits with her daughter after surrendering her to Byron. When Byron arranged to place her in a Capuchin convent in Bagnacavallo, Italy, Clairmont was outraged. In 1821, she wrote Byron a letter accusing him of breaking his promise that their daughter would never be apart from one of her parents. She felt that the physical conditions in convents were unhealthy and the education provided was poor and was responsible for "the state of ignorance & profligacy of Italian women, all pupils of Convents. They are bad wives & most unnatural mothers, licentious & ignorant they are the dishonour & unhappiness of society... This step will procure to you an innumerable addition of enemies & of blame."


title: Claire Clairmont

text: By March 1822, it had been two years since she had seen her daughter. She plotted to kidnap Allegra from the convent and asked Shelley to forge a letter of permission from Byron. Shelley refused her request. Byron's seemingly callous treatment of the child was further vilified when Allegra died there at the age of five, from a fever some scholars identify as typhus and others speculate was a malarial-type fever. Clairmont held Byron entirely responsible for the loss of their daughter and hated him for the rest of her life. Shelley's death followed only two months later.


title: Claire Clairmont

text: Shortly after Clairmont had introduced Shelley to Byron, she met Edward John Trelawny, who was to play a major role in the short remaining lives of both poets. After Shelley's death, Trelawny sent her love letters from Florence pleading with her to marry him, but she was not interested. Still, she remained in contact with him the rest of her long life. Clairmont wrote to Mary Shelley: "He [Trelawny] likes a turbid and troubled life; I a quiet one; he is full of fine feeling and has no principles; I am full of fine principles but never had a feeling (in my life)."


title: Claire Clairmont

text: Devastated after Shelley's death, Mary returned to England. She paid for Clairmont to travel to her brother's home in Vienna where she stayed for a year, before relocating to Russia, where she worked as a governess from 1825 to 1828. The people she worked for treated her almost as a member of the family. Still, what Clairmont longed for most of all was privacy and peace and quiet, as she complained in letters to Mary Shelley.


title: Claire Clairmont

text: Two Russian men she met commented on her general disdain for the male sex; irritated by their assumption that since she was always falling in love, she would return their affections if they flirted with her, Clairmont joked in a letter to Mary Shelley that perhaps she should fall in love with "both" of them at once and prove them wrong. She returned to England in 1828, but remained there only a short while before departing for Dresden, where she was employed as a companion and housekeeper. Scholar Bradford A. Booth suggested in 1938 that Clairmont, driven by a need for money, might have been the true author of most of "The Pole", an 1830 short story that appeared in the magazine "The Court Assembly and Belle Assemblée" as by "The Author of "Frankenstein"". Unlike Mary Shelley, Clairmont was familiar with the Polish used in the story. At one point, she thought of writing a book about the dangers that might result from "erroneous opinions" about the relations between men and women, using examples from the lives of Shelley and Byron. She did not make many literary attempts, as she explained to her friend Jane Williams:


title: Claire Clairmont

text: But in our family, if you cannot write an epic or novel, that by its originality knocks all other novels on the head, you are a despicable creature, not worth acknowledging.


title: Claire Clairmont

text: Clairmont returned to England in 1836, the year William Godwin died, where she worked as a music teacher. She cared for her mother when she was dying. In 1841, after Mary Jane Godwin's death, Clairmont moved to Pisa, where she lived with Margaret King (officially Lady Margaret Mount Cashell but known as Mrs Mason), an old pupil of Mary Wollstonecraft. She lived in Paris for a time in the 1840s. Percy Shelley had left her £12,000 in his will, which she finally received in 1844. She carried on a sometimes turbulent, bitter correspondence with her stepsister, until Mary died in 1851.


title: Claire Clairmont

text: Clairmont converted to Catholicism, despite having hated the religion earlier in her life. She moved to Florence in 1870 and lived there in an expatriate colony with her niece, Paulina. She was also close to Paulina's brother Wilhelm Gaulis Clairmont, the only other surviving child of her brother Charles. She considered making her home with him and financially supported some of his endeavours, for example with £500 towards the purchase of a farm.


title: Claire Clairmont

text: Clairmont also clung to memorabilia of Percy Shelley. "The Aspern Papers" by Henry James is based on the letters Shelley wrote to her, which she saved until her death. Clairmont died in Florence on 19 March 1879, at the age of 80 having outlived all the members of Shelley's circle except Trelawny and Jane Williams.


title: Claire Clairmont

text: The 1816 trip to Switzerland during the Year Without a Summer, during which Clairmont aimed to reunite with Byron, and Mary Shelley began writing "Frankenstein", is the focus of multiple modern re-tellings in several mediums. She was portrayed by Myriam Cyr in the 1986 Ken Russell film "Gothic", by Elizabeth Hurley in the Goya Award-winning 1988 Spanish film "Rowing with the Wind", and by Laura Dern in "Haunted Summer" (1988).


title: Claire Clairmont

text: Thirty years later, Clairmont was played by Bel Powley in "Mary Shelley" (2017) and by Nadia Parkes in the Doctor Who episode "The Haunting of Villa Diodati" (2020),


title: Claire Clairmont

text: Clairmont was depicted in a special edition of the comic book "The Wicked + The Divine", as an incarnation of the goddess Inanna and a member of the 1830s Pantheon.


title: Lesson plan

text: A lesson plan is a teacher's detailed description of the course of instruction or "learning trajectory" for a lesson. A daily lesson plan is developed by a teacher to guide class learning. Details will vary depending on the preference of the teacher, subject being covered, and the needs of the students. There may be requirements mandated by the school system regarding the plan. A lesson plan is the teacher's guide for running a particular lesson, and it includes the goal (what the students are supposed to learn), how the goal will be reached (the method, procedure) and a way of measuring how well the goal was reached (test, worksheet, homework etc.).


title: Lesson plan

text: While there are many formats for a lesson plan, most lesson plans contain some or all of these elements, typically in this order:


title: Lesson plan

text: According to Herbart, there are eight lesson plan phases that are designed to provide "many opportunities for teachers to recognize and correct students' misconceptions while extending understanding for future lessons." These phases are: Introduction, Foundation, Brain Activation, Body of New Information, Clarification, Practice and Review, Independent Practice, and Closure.


title: Lesson plan

text: A well-developed lesson plan reflects the interests and needs of students. It incorporates best practices for the educational field. The lesson plan correlates with the teacher's philosophy of education, which is what the teacher feels is the purpose of educating the students.


title: Lesson plan

text: Secondary English program lesson plans, for example, usually center around four topics. They are literary theme, elements of language and composition, literary history, and literary genre. A broad, thematic lesson plan is preferable, because it allows a teacher to create various research, writing, speaking, and reading assignments. It helps an instructor teach different literature genres and incorporate videotapes, films, and television programs. Also, it facilitates teaching literature and English together. Similarly, history lesson plans focus on content (historical accuracy and background information), analytic thinking, scaffolding, and the practicality of lesson structure and meeting of educational goals. School requirements and a teacher's personal tastes, in that order, determine the exact requirements for a lesson plan.


title: Lesson plan

text: "Unit plans" follow much the same format as a lesson plan, but cover an entire unit of work, which may span several days or weeks. Modern constructivist teaching styles may not require individual lesson plans. The unit plan may include specific objectives and timelines, but lesson plans can be more fluid as they adapt to student needs and learning styles.


title: Lesson plan

text: Unit Planning is the proper selection of learning activities which presents a complete picture. Unit planning is a systematic arrangement of subject matter. "A unit plan is one which involves a series of learning experiences that are linked to achieve the aims composed by methodology and contents," (Samford). "A unit is an organization of various activities, experiences and types of learning around a central problem or purpose developed cooperatively by a group of pupils under a teacher leadership involving planning, execution of plans and evaluation of results," (Dictionary of Education).


title: Lesson plan

text: It is important to note that lesson planning is a thinking process, not the filling in of a lesson plan template. A lesson plan is envisaged as a blue print, guide map for action, a comprehensive chart of classroom teaching-learning activities, an elastic but systematic approach for the teaching of concepts, skills and attitudes.


title: Lesson plan

text: The first thing for setting a lesson plan is to create an objective, that is, a statement of purpose for the whole lesson. An objective statement itself should answer what students will be able to do by the end of the lesson. The objective drives the whole lesson plan; it is the reason the lesson plan exists. The teacher should ensure that lesson plan goals are compatible with the developmental level of the students. The teacher ensures as well that their student achievement expectations are reasonable.


title: Lesson plan

text: The following guidelines were set by Canadian Council on Learning to enhance the effectiveness of the teaching process:


title: Lesson plan

text: Creating a reliable lesson plan is an important part of classroom management. Doing so requires the ability to incorporate effective strategies into the classroom, the students and overall environment. There are many different types of lesson plans and ways of creating them. Teachers can encourage critical thinking in a group setting by creating plans that include the students participating collectively. Visual strategies are another component tied into lesson plans that help with classroom management. These visual strategies help a wide variety of students to increase their learning structure and possibly their overall comprehension of the material or what is in the lesson plan itself. These strategies also give students with disabilities the option to learn in a possible more efficient way. Teachers need to realize the wide range of strategies that can be used to maintain classroom management and students. They should find the best strategies to incorporate in their lesson planning for their specific grade, student type, teaching style, etc. and utilize them to their advantage. The classroom tends to flow better when the teacher has a proper lesson planned, as it provides structure for the students. Being able to utilize class time efficiently comes with creating lesson plans at their core.


title: Lesson plan

text: Assignments are either in-class or take-home tasks to be completed for the next class period. These tasks are important because they help ensure that the instruction provides the students with a goal, the power to get there, and the interest to be engaged in rigorous academic contexts as they acquire content and skills necessary to be able to participate in academic coursework.


title: Lesson plan

text: Experts cite that, in order to be effective and achieve objectives, the development of these assignment tasks must take into consideration the perceptions of the students because they are different from those of the teacher's. This challenge can be addressed by providing examples instead of abstract concepts or instructions. Another strategy involves the development of tasks that are specifically related to the learners' needs, interests, and age ranges. There are also experts who cite the importance of teaching learners about assignment planning. This is said to facilitate the students' engagement and interest in their assignment. Some strategies include brainstorming about the assignment process and the creation of a learning environment wherein students feel engaged and willing to reflect on their prior learning and to discuss specific or new topics.


title: Lesson plan

text: There are several assignment types so the instructor must decide whether class assignments are whole-class, small groups, workshops, independent work, peer learning, or contractual:


title: Lesson plan

text: These assignment categories (e.g. peer learning, independent, small groups) can also be used to guide the instructor’s choice of assessment measures that can provide information about student and class comprehension of the material. As discussed by Biggs (1999), there are additional questions an instructor can consider when choosing which type of assignment would provide the most benefit to students. These include:


title: Rusty Hamer

text: Russell Craig "Rusty" Hamer (February 15, 1947 – January 18, 1990) was an American stage, film and television actor. He is best known for portraying Rusty Williams, the wisecracking son of entertainer Danny Williams (Danny Thomas), on the ABC/CBS situation comedy "Make Room for Daddy" (later retitled "The Danny Thomas Show"), from 1953 to 1964. He reprised the role in three reunion specials and the sequel series, "Make Room for Granddaddy", which aired on ABC from 1970 to 1971.


title: Rusty Hamer

text: Born in Tenafly, New Jersey, Hamer was the youngest of three sons of Arthur Walter John Hamer, Sr., a men's shirt salesman and Dorothy Hamer ("née" Chretien), a former silent film actress of Maltese heritage. He had two elder brothers, John and Walter. As a child, Hamer was nicknamed "Rusty" as a derivative of his first name Russell, but also because of his red hair and freckles.


title: Rusty Hamer

text: Due to his parents' involvement in community theatre productions, Hamer and his brothers also began performing in stage productions. As a toddler, Hamer memorized and recited stories and performed skits for service club luncheons, women's clubs and church groups.


title: Rusty Hamer

text: In 1951, the Hamers moved to Los Angeles where Arthur Hamer worked as representative for a manufacturer of men's sport shirts (Arthur Hamer died eight months after his son was cast in "The Danny Thomas Show").


title: Rusty Hamer

text: Shortly after arriving, Hamer's elder brother John was discovered by an agent while performing in a local stage production in which Rusty was also performing. The agent signed both boys to a film contract. The following year, Hamer won his first acting role in the 3-D Western "Fort Ti", starring George Montgomery and Joan Vohs.


title: Rusty Hamer

text: In 1953, entertainer Danny Thomas' secretary saw Hamer in a stage production and was impressed by the child's talent and charm. She suggested that Thomas audition Hamer for a role in his upcoming sitcom "Make Room for Daddy". Thomas was also impressed by the 6-year old and cast Hamer as his precocious and quick-witted son, Rusty Williams. Thomas later said of Hamer, "He was the best boy actor I ever saw in my life. He had a great memory...great timing and you could change a line on him at the last minute and he came right back with it."


title: Rusty Hamer

text: "Make Room for Daddy" debuted on ABC on September 29, 1953, and, while critically acclaimed, garnered poor ratings. After three seasons, the series moved to CBS where it was re-tooled and retitled "The Danny Thomas Show". The retooled version quickly became a hit with audiences and was a Top 20 hit for its remaining seven seasons.


title: Rusty Hamer

text: During the run of "The Danny Thomas Show", Hamer attempted to launch a singing career. He first performed a song in a 1956 episode of "Danny Thomas" entitled "The Talented Kid". In 1959, Hamer released his only single, a "rockaballad" called "Two-of-a-Kind" (with the b side "If Only Mother Would Let Me") written by Wally Gold and Aaron Schroeder, through Mercury Records. The single was a commercial failure and Hamer never released another single.


title: Rusty Hamer

text: By late 1963, "The Danny Thomas Show" had garnered five Primetime Emmy Awards (among other awards) and was still ranked in the Top 10. However, Danny Thomas announced that he had decided to end the show in order to produce and star in other projects.


title: Rusty Hamer

text: After the series ended, 17-year-old Hamer enrolled at Palisades High School (later restructured as Palisades Charter High School), but had difficulty adjusting to public school as he was accustomed to being privately tutored on the set.


title: Rusty Hamer

text: Shortly before graduating in June 1964, Hamer was interviewed by reporter Bob Thomas and stated that he intended to continue his acting career and hoped to branch out into dramatic roles. Hamer said that he was under consideration for roles in several television series including "Mr. Novak", "Arrest and Trial" and "Ben Casey". Hamer also said that he planned to attend college on the advice of Danny Thomas, whom he considered a second father, since his own father had died in 1953. A year after "The Danny Thomas Show" ended, Hamer reprised the role of Rusty Williams in the reunion special "The Danny Thomas TV Family Reunion", which aired on NBC.


title: Rusty Hamer

text: On December 27, 1966, Hamer underwent emergency surgery at Santa Monica Emergency Hospital after sustaining a gunshot wound to the abdomen when a gun he was carrying in a shoulder holster slid out, fell to the ground and discharged. Hamer was carrying the gun having just returned from an overnight hunting trip. After recovering, he appeared in a second reunion special, "Make More Room For Daddy", that aired during a segment of the NBC anthology series "The Danny Thomas Hour", in 1967.


title: Rusty Hamer

text: Throughout the mid to late 1960s, Hamer continued to attempt a transition into adult roles and, according to Danny Thomas, enrolled in acting classes, but was unable to land any acting jobs. By the end of the decade, he had grown increasingly bitter and depressed over his waning career. To support himself, he began working for a messenger service in Los Angeles and later worked as a carpenter's apprentice. Hamer's only post "Danny Thomas Show" acting role was a guest spot on the CBS sitcom "Green Acres" that aired in November 1969.


title: Rusty Hamer

text: In 1969, Hamer again reprised his role as Rusty Williams in a third reunion special, "Make Room for Granddaddy". The special aired on CBS on September 14. Due to the ratings success of the reunion specials, ABC created a weekly sequel series, also titled "Make Room for Granddaddy", for their fall 1970 schedule. The series premiered on September 24, 1970, but failed to catch on with audiences. "Make Room for Granddaddy" was canceled after one season. It was Hamer's final acting role.


title: Rusty Hamer

text: In the 1970s, Hamer moved to southwestern Louisiana where he worked on an off-shore oil rig for Exxon and delivered newspapers. In 1976, he relocated to DeRidder, Louisiana, to be closer to his ailing mother, Dorothy, who was suffering from Alzheimer's disease and lived with his elder brother John. John Hamer had moved to the area and opened a cafe where, in his final years, Hamer occasionally worked as a short order cook.


title: Rusty Hamer

text: In October 1981, Hamer reunited with former co-stars Danny Thomas and Angela Cartwright. The reunion was televised as part of the ABC special "What Became Of...?", that aired on October 25.


title: Rusty Hamer

text: On the night of January 18, 1990, John Hamer found his brother's body in his trailer home in DeRidder, Louisiana. Hamer had shot himself in the head with a .357 Magnum revolver.


title: Rusty Hamer

text: John Hamer later said he believed that his brother had remained bitter over his inability to transition into acting as an adult. He also said he believed that his brother's chronic and debilitating back pain (for which Hamer refused to seek medical treatment) and their mother's illness had contributed to Hamer's depression. He stated:


title: Rusty Hamer

text: He hasn't really been happy since his early 20s. But he didn't show any signs of this happening. It was just all of a sudden. [...] He was a very unhappy, very confused young man. No one does something like that if he isn't confused. I've heard of a lot of child actors who have become unhappy with their lives after they've left the industry.


title: Rusty Hamer

text: On February 8, 1960, Hamer was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for his work in television. His star is located at 6323 Hollywood Boulevard.


title: Rusty Hamer

text: Hamer's suicide raised awareness of the potential mental fragility of child performers and inspired fellow former child actor Paul Petersen, formerly of ABC's "The Donna Reed Show," to establish the support group A Minor Consideration. The group seeks to improve working conditions for young actors and assists former child entertainers in making the transition from past fame to adult life.


title: Krita

text: Krita ( ) is a free and open-source raster graphics editor designed primarily for digital art and 2D animation. The software runs on Windows, macOS, Linux, Android, and ChromeOS, and features an OpenGL-accelerated canvas, colour management support, an advanced brush engine, non-destructive layers and masks, group-based layer management, vector artwork support, and switchable customisation profiles.


title: Krita

text: The project's name "Krita" is primarily inspired by the Swedish words , meaning "crayon" (or chalk), and "" which means "to draw". It follows the "K" prefix like everything else in the KDE suite.


title: Krita

text: Early development of the project can be tracked back to 1998 when Matthias Ettrich, founder of KDE, showcased a Qt GUI hack for GIMP at Linux Kongress. The idea of building a Qt-based image editor was later passed to KImage, maintained by Michael Koch, as a part of KOffice suite. In 1999, Matthias Elter proposed the idea of building the software using CORBA around ImageMagick. To avoid existing trademarks on the market, the project underwent numerous name changes: KImageShop, Krayon, until it was finally settled with "Krita" in 2002. The first public version of Krita was released with KOffice 1.4 in 2004. In years between 2004 and 2009, Krita was developed as a generic image manipulation software like Photoshop and GIMP.


title: Krita

text: A change of direction happened to the project in 2009, with a new goal of becoming digital painting software like Corel Painter and SAI. Also from that point, the project began to experiment with various ways of funding its development, including Google Summer of Code and funded jobs for students. As a result, the development gained speed and resulted in better performance and stability.


title: Krita

text: The Krita Foundation was created in 2013 to provide support for Krita's development. It collaborated with Intel to create Krita Sketch as a marketing campaign and Krita Studio with KO GmbH as a commercially supported version for movie and VFX studios. Kickstarter campaigns have been used to crowdfund Krita's development since 2014.


title: Krita

text: The current version of Krita is developed with Qt 5 and KDE Frameworks 5. It is designed primarily for concept artists, illustrators, matte and texture artists, and the VFX industry. It has the following key features:


title: Krita

text: The most prominent feature of Krita is arguably its UX design with graphics tablet users in mind. It uses a combination of pen buttons, keyboard modifiers and an icon-based HUD to ensure frequently-used functions can be accessed by fewer clicks, without the need to search through text-based menus.


title: Krita

text: Most-used drawing commands can be accessed via touch by combining keyboard modifiers with pen/mouse buttons and gestures:


title: Krita

text: Krita's animation tools are designed for frame-by-frame raster animation. They have the following features:


title: Krita

text: Krita's resource manager allows each brush or texture preset to be tagged by a user and quickly searched, filtered and loaded as a group. A collection of user-made presets can be packaged as "bundles" and loaded as a whole. Krita provides many such brush set and texture bundles on its official website.


title: Krita

text: OpenGL accelerated canvas is used to speed up Krita's performance. It provides the following benefits:


title: Krita

text: Krita has a collection of built-in filters and supports G'MIC filters. It has real-time filter preview support.


title: Krita

text: Filters included in a default installation: levels, colour adjustment curves, brightness/contrast curve, desaturate, invert, auto contrast, HSV adjustment, pixelise, raindrops, oil paint, gaussian blur, motion blur, blur, lens blur, colour to alpha, color transfer, minimise channel, maximise channel, top/left/bottom/right edge detection, sobel, sharpen, mean removal, unsharp mask, gaussian noise removal, wavelet noise reducer, emboss horizontal only/in all directions/(laplacian)/vertical only/with variable depth/horizontal and vertical, small tiles, round corners, phong bumpmap.


title: Krita

text: Krita's native document format is Krita Document (.kra). It can also save to many other file formats including PSD.


title: Krita

text: Krita's mascot is Kiki the Cyber Squirrel, a robotic, anthropomorphic squirrel character created by Tyson Tan. The community collectively decided the mascot to be a squirrel. The first version of Kiki was posted to the KDE forum in 2012 and was used in Krita version 2.6's introduction booklet. Kiki has been used as Krita's startup splash screen since Krita version 2.8. So far, each new version of Krita has come with a new version of Kiki. Kiki has been used for Krita's merchandise shop items and Krita's Steam project artworks.


title: Krita

text: Krita sprints are events during which Krita developers and artists get together for a few days, exchange ideas and do programming face-to-face, in order to speedup development and improve relationships between members.


title: Pramod Sawant

text: Pramod Sawant (born 24 April 1973) is an Indian politician and the 13th and current Chief Minister of Goa.


title: Pramod Sawant

text: Sawant represents the Sanquelim constituency in the Goa Legislative Assembly and is a member of the Bharatiya Janata Party.


title: Pramod Sawant

text: He was serving as the speaker of the Goa assembly before being sworn in as Chief Minister, after the death of the sitting chief minister Manohar Parrikar.


title: Pramod Sawant

text: Sawant was born on 24 April 1973 to Pandurang and Padmini Sawant. He obtained a Bachelor of Ayurveda, Medicine and Surgery degree from the Ganga Education Society's Ayurvedic Medical College in Kolhapur and a postgraduate degree of Master of Social Work from the Tilak Maharashtra University at Pune.


title: Pramod Sawant

text: Sawant started his electoral career when he contested the 2008 Pale Constituency by-election on Bharatiya Janta Party ticket and lost to Pratap Prabhakar Gauns of Indian National Congress. He contested the 2012 assembly election from Sanquelim constituency. He won the constituency by 14,255 (66.02%) votes defeating Pratap Prabhakar Gauns of the Indian National Congress. He also served as the spokesperson of the Goa unit of the Bharatiya Janata Party for a brief period of time. Later in 2017 he was re-elected to the Goa Legislative Assembly from the same constituency defeating Dharmesh Saglani of the Indian National Congress with 10,058 (43.04%) votes. On 22 March 2017, he was elected as the Speaker of the Goa Legislative Assembly.