Legislating into the unknown – Andrew Azzopardi

Let’ face it, the proposed cannabis reform is nothing short of normalising drug use. The reform will permit the use of cannabis, users will be allowed to carry up to seven grams of the drug and it will be permissible to grow up to four cannabis plants at home.

Oh, and how will parents explain to their children why they are crushing and processing leaves from one of the cannabis plants growing in the internal yard?

Are we really confident that all politicians are comfortable with this, even those on the government side?

I concur with Nationalist MP Claudio Grech’s comments as reported in MaltaToday: “The law sets the permissible age for cannabis use at 18 when specialists suggest this should be 25; the law sets no limits on THC [the psycho-active substance in cannabis] and the threshold for possession has been increased by 800 per cent... these are radical changes and government has not produced studies to justify why they are necessary,”.

Recently, Prime Minister Robert Abela inaugurated a drug therapeutic centre, which his father, former president George Abela, who sits on the Caritas board, worked so hard to set up. This project is intended to support young people who are...