Glenn Bedingfield’s 500

Barely had Glenn Bedingfield been sworn in as home affairs minister before he blew it. In a triumphant post the rookie put his massive foot in it.  “Malta has amongst the lowest youth drug use in the EU,” he boasted. He claimed that “a United Nations study” found that just 0.1% of Maltese use cocaine – that’s just 500 people.  “Thank you to the police and the forces of order,” the minister added.

Bedingfield is either trying to deceive or else has absolutely no clue – and not over a trivial matter but over one of the biggest challenges facing the country: a rapidly expanding cocaine habit.

Bedingfield got everything wrong in that post. First, it wasn’t a United Nations report, as Bedingfield claimed, that reported those figures. It was a European Union Drugs Agency (EUDA) report. And the EUDA hadn’t done any studies itself.  It was simply reproducing a survey coordinated by Malta’s Social Policy Ministry. It wasn’t a proper study – it was a self-reporting questionnaire. A small sample of people in Malta had been asked to report their own criminal activity – using cocaine. Not surprisingly, the vast majority weren’t willing to incriminate themselves.

Malta is a small country with fairly close-knit communities where anonymity feels less secure – especially when a Labour government is coordinating the survey. The social stigma around drug use is still significant. People still worry about potential reputational consequences or legal implications of disclosing their own criminal activity even to supposedly anonymous surveys.

Self-reporting is widely recognised as seriously underestimating the true prevalence of illicit drug use.

That report Bedingfield misquoted specifically cautioned that the surveys it was reproducing have important limitations for estimating drug use – for very obvious reasons. Yet, what did Bedingfield do? He falsely claimed that just 500 individuals use cocaine.

The minister has other far more reliable sources to gauge how many people are consuming cocaine. The Maltese National Drug Report 2024 estimated that, in 2023, there were approximately 2,029 high-risk cocaine users. That’s just the high-risk ones – there’s probably thousands more regular cocaine users. Bedingfield should have known and must have been briefed that, in 2023, there were 554 individuals receiving treatment for cocaine addiction. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Most cocaine users don’t seek treatment. 

Bedingfield has at his disposal other sources to gauge the real magnitude of Malta’s cocaine problem – admissions to hospital with cocaine related issues, the number testing positive after motor vehicle accidents, the amount of cocaine seized. In 2023, there were 1,266 drug related emergency department admissions. And that’s an 11.6% increase compared to just one year earlier and more than double the number from two years earlier.

Bedingfield must know that claiming Malta has no real cocaine problem is not only deceitful but dangerous. In 2023, Malta reported 18 confirmed drug-induced deaths – the majority of them involved cocaine.  A further eight deaths were still awaiting toxicological results. And that’s not counting deaths caused by intoxicated drivers.

Malta’s most recent official national drug report indicates that 2,311 individuals received specialist treatment for drug related problems in 2023. Cocaine was the primary drug in 41% of those cases. In 2003, that proportion was just 4%.

Cocaine use in Malta has exploded in a very short time. It’s Malta’s fastest growing illicit drug problem – and if anybody should know that it’s the home affairs minister.

Cocaine is not a minor issue as Glenn Bedingfield wants you to believe- Kevin Cassar

What interest does the minister have in minimising a rapidly expanding drug problem? Whose interests are served when Bedingfield brags that Malta effectively has no cocaine problem? And what trust can those families who have suffered brutally as a result of cocaine abuse place in the minister? His own senior police officers cannot harbour much respect for their clueless minister. The criminal organisations running the drug trafficking must be delighted.

So what led Bedingfield to issue that cynical post? Did he just misunderstand the statistics? Did he rely on some briefing by incompetent persons of trust? Or did he just choose to highlight that misleading dataset to deceive the public? What is certain is that Bedingfield’s statement did not reflect the broader evidence available from Malta’s own National Drug Report or the guidance on interpreting drug prevalence data specifically outlined in the EUDA’s guidance.

Bedingfield should also have known about Malta’s wastewater-based drug monitoring. The cocaine metabolite bezoylecgonine has been regularly detected in Maltese wastewater indicating that cocaine is being widely consumed in the community. Cocaine residues are highest at weekends consistent with the ‘recreational’ use associated with nightlife and social events. The frustration is that Malta’s wastewater results have not been reported in as much detail as those for other European cities.

Malta’s participation in the EUDA interactive database has been relatively limited making year-to-year interpretation less robust than in other countries. If Malta did publish a fuller national analysis of its wastewater data alongside the National Drug Report, even less people would believe Bedingfield when he spews more nonsense about how little cocaine there is in Malta.

Bedingfield must be aware that the police carried out 180 significant drug operations in 2025 and seized 668kg of cocaine – because his predecessor reported it in parliament. That’s enough to sustain 4,000 regular cocaine users and 2,000 high risk users for a whole year.  That’s worth around €47 million. What Bedingfield should be asking his police force is why cocaine use has risen dramatically yet cocaine related arraignments have fallen from 77 in 2022 to 38 in 2023. How come arraignments have gone down by 84% since 2017 when cocaine use is skyrocketing?

Malta’s biggest problem isn’t cocaine. It’s Bedingfield and the Labour leader who gave him that responsibility. We don’t expect Bedingfield to have formal training or professional experience in epidemiology, biostatistics, public health, toxicology, wastewater epidemiology, or scientific data analysis. But we do expect him to be able to interpret basic data. We do expect him to be honest, at least over something as dangerous as cocaine abuse. We don’t expect him to try and fool us.

Bedingfield, the minister responsible for fighting the multi-million-euro illicit drug trade run by dangerous organised criminal societies, believes Malta doesn’t have a cocaine problem.

When a key minister materially understates the scale of such a devastating public health and social problem, whether deliberately or through sheer stupidity, we should all be concerned. Cocaine is not a minor issue as Bedingfield wants you to believe.