It is now official. Every household can cultivate four cannabis plants. They do not need to be kept away from the sight of children and minors so long as they cannot be seen from outside.
Besides, within a residence, one can keep up to 50 grams of cannabis in each household.
Possessing up to seven grams of cannabis is no longer illegal.
A person found in possession of between seven and 28 grams of cannabis faces a penalty of €50 to €100 to be imposed by the same people or tribunals that impose traffic fines for parking tickets.
Although smoking cannabis in a public place or in front of a minor is still considered to be an offence, the drug, contrary to what happens in all other crimes, is not seized by the police, even if it is the res delicta, the object of the crime, unless the amount exceeds seven grams.
Clubs and associations may be formed with the specific aim of cultivating cannabis and distributing it in the controlled amount among its members. The controlled amount per member is seven grams a day up to a maximum of 50 grams per month.
These “cannabis” clubs can also distribute unsterilised seeds of the cannabis plant to its members, up to 20 seeds per month per member.
A person can only be a member of one club. Maximum membership for each club: 500.
The club can cultivate as many plants as may be authorised by the Cannabis Authority being set up.
Once the cultivation of not more than four cannabis plants is lawful, there is nothing to stop any person from applying to trade in the importation of cannabis seeds from abroad into Malta, so long as no more than the number of seeds sufficient for the cultivation of four plants per household is sold and distributed.
Although consuming cannabis in public is an offence punished by a maximum penalty of €250, possession of the legal amount of cannabis in a public place near schools, youth centres and places where young people gather is not an offence.
The government has obstinately and arrogantly proceeded with the enactment of the law without any electoral mandate to do so. It shut its ears to the claims of civil society, some of which, like Caritas, have worked and laboured in the field for decades.
When their names were called to stand up and be counted, they voted in favour of this highly criticised and controversial bill- Tonio Borg
As most of the 53 civil society organisations remarked: “Throughout the public debate surrounding this law, the government listened only to one pro-cannabis organisation and ignored the many organisations, constituted bodies, medical experts, professionals from the psycho-social field, academics, organisations with years of experience in the drug prevention field, former drug users and many others who have all expressed their serious concerns about this proposed law.”
When the vote at third reading was announced on December 14, my mind wandered down memory lane.
I distinctly remember the whole unjustified hullabaloo which the then Labour oppposition raised against a bill proposed by the Nationalist government repealing an unjust mandatory imprisonment in cases where a person was found with cannabis for personal use at the airport.
The government had tried to abolish the anomaly that if one is found with a small amount of cannabis at Paceville one was not liable to mandatory imprisonment but if caught with the same amount for personal use at the airport one faced a mandatory minimum term of imprisonment of six months.
All hell broke loose. It took an entire 10 sittings, from July 12, 1999, to October 20 of the same year, for the bill to be approved at the second reading.
Several members of the Labour opposition vehemently opposed the bill because it was “sending the wrong message”.
Some of those who requested a division then, and voted against, are still active in politics and are now happy that their government, to satisfy the wishes of a so-called progressive lobby, will allow cannabis plants to be cultivated theoretically in each and every household.
All the members of parliament from the government side who were catapulted from outside into parliament without ever having contested a single general election, some of who promised, when co-opted, that they would vote “according to their conscience” rather than party whip diktat, failed to rise to the occasion and oppose the bill.
When their names were called to stand up and be counted, they voted in favour of this highly criticised and controversial bill.
Aspiring to higher office won over the natural instinct to do the right thing.
They hung their heads in shame and voted as their political master wished.