AD says drug laws in Malta are out of sync with social trends

Calls for decriminalisation of soft drugs for personal use

Alternattiva Demokratika called for the decriminalisation of drugs for personal use yesterday, saying that the existing drug laws in Malta are out of sync with social trends.

AD chairman Michael Briguglio said: “Legislation on alcohol and other drugs should be reformed, so that victims can be given help. This requires the decriminalisation of drugs for personal use. Education remains a key tool for policies on drugs; people should be aware of the various effects of drugs and if they seek help they should be able to receive it.”

He said that criminalisation in this area has proved to be a failure, both in terms of social policy and also with respect to people who have had to suffer a great deal because of the system.

AD appealed to the PN and the PL to stop being populist and to endorse its proposal for the decriminalisation of drugs for personal use. AD said this policy has been successful in countries such as Portugal and has had a positive effect on safety and the crime rate.

Spokesman for citizenship and migration Robert Callus said: “Someone cultivating a couple of plants can get a 10-year jail sentence or more. Drug laws need a radical reform and anomalies in the law need to be addressed.”

For instance, he explained, a distinction needs to be made between drug cultivation for trafficking purposes and the cultivation of a plant in small quantities that clearly indicates personal use. If there is no intention to sell, he said, then it is for personal use.

Mr Callus said the country also needed to start making a distinction between soft and hard drugs. Treating all drugs in the same way is only an incentive for traffickers to import hard drugs, which is where the big money is.

“A drug policy should be based on research rather than populism. It is by now abundantly clear that extremely harsh sentences for drug use are not a deterrent. On the other hand, countries like Portugal, which decriminalised the personal use of all drugs in 2001, has not seen any significant rise in drug abuse.”