Smoking cannabis at home could cost €235 if smell annoys neighbours

Anybody who smokes cannabis in their home may face a €235 fine if a neighbour reports them to the cannabis authority and claims they can smell the drug.

On Monday, parliament unanimously approved a law that amended various laws relating to cannabis activities, which introduced stricter regulations against people who smoke and cultivate cannabis.

The law has not come into effect yet, as it still needs to be signed by the president and published in the Government Gazette.

When the part-legalisation of cannabis was introduced in 2021, it allowed people to smoke cannabis in their homes and not in public. If a person were caught smoking cannabis in public, they would be fined €235.

However, the new law expands this fine to also be levied against anyone smoking cannabis “in any place where the odour emission… causes a nuisance to third parties”.

Regarding the cultivation of cannabis, the law states that if the plants are visible, bother people with their odour, or are accessible to minors, then people can face a fine ranging between €300 to €500.

Speaking to Times of Malta, the executive chairperson of the Authority for the Responsible Use of Cannabis (ARUC), Joey Reno Vella, said that the authority was receiving multiple complaints from people saying that the smell of cannabis coming from a neighbour was becoming a nuisance.

Complaints were about smells that came from smoking and cultivation.

“A lot of people were smoking on their balconies and annoying people who lived above them,” Vella said.

As a compromise, Vella suggested that people invest in carbon air filtration systems that would remove the smell.

“The right to consume cannabis in your private residence will remain, but you cannot exercise that right by being a nuisance to others,” Vella said.

Vella clarified that most likely, anybody who is reported will not be hit with a fine immediately. However, if they persist in being a nuisance, they risk facing a fine.

Associations that break rules will face magistrate

Meanwhile, the new law introduces stricter regulations against cannabis associations.

Under the new law, any offences committed by cannabis associations will be heard in front of a magistrate rather than a tribunal.

Fines for associations that take on underage members will increase significantly. Previously, fines ranged from €500 to €1,000 but they will now start at €3,000 and rise to €10,000.

In the case of serious offences, the highest fine was increased from €10,000 to €50,000, or double the value of the proceedings related to the offence, whichever is higher.

The law also gives ARUC more powers and turns it into a “one-stop shop for the enforcement of cannabis,” Rebecca Buttigieg had said in a previous plenary sitting.

This means that besides overseeing cannabis associations, it will also be given powers to enforce against commercial shops that are advertising and selling cannabis products without a license.