Caritas insisted on Wednesday that none of the members of the newly constituted board of the Authority for the Responsible Use of Cannabis represented it.

The church organisation, which helps recovering drug addicts and campaigns against drug abuse, said it acknowledged that the board members were experienced in their sectors.

But while some of them used to work for Caritas in the past and gave valuable service, none of them represented the organisation. 

As a voluntary organisation that offered services to addicts recovering from drugs, including cannabis, it could not sit on the board of an authority that would regulate other organisations that would actually provide cannabis, albeit in a controlled manner. This would amount to a conflict of interest. 

Caritas reiterated its opposition to the cannabis law, recently approved by parliament, saying society should do whatever it could to limit the use of cannabis as well as demand for it.  

It expressed confidence that while working within the constraints of the law, the authority's board would resist pressure for even greater liberalisation of cannabis.