This week the European country of Malta will be legalizing the cannabis plant for personal use.
The move makes the nation the first European country to legalize the cultivation and possession of marijuana.
Possession of up to seven grams of the drug will be legal for those aged 18 and above, and it will permissible to grow up to four cannabis plants at home, with up to 50g of the dried product storable.
According to minister Owen Bonnici, who spoke to the Guardian, a vote in favor of the legislation in the Maltese parliament on Tuesday will be followed by the law being signed by the president in order for it to be enacted by the weekend.
The EU’s smallest member state, is likely to be followed by reform across Europe in 2022.
Germany has also recently announced a move to establish a legally regulated market, while governments of Switzerland, Luxembourg and the Netherlands have also announced similar moves.
Bonnici said his government did not want to encourage the use of recreational drugs but that there was no evidence for the argument that the use of cannabis was in itself a gateway to harder substances.
“There is a wave of understanding now that the hard-fist approach against cannabis users was disproportionate, unjust and it was rendering a lot of suffering to people who are leading exemplary lives. But the fact that they make use on a personal basis of cannabis is putting them in the jaws of criminality,” said the minister.
He added, “I’m very glad that Malta will be the first country which will put words in statute in a comprehensive manner with a regulatory authority”.
Bonnici also said his government had conducted a long debate over whether to put in controls on the strength of cannabis that can be grown and used, measured by the level of the key psychoactive, or mood-altering, ingredient, delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (TCH).
He said, “We had a huge discussion internally on that. And we concluded that if a limit [can be put] on the strength of the cannabis, the THC levels, you will be creating a new market for the black market. What we need to do is to educate people and inform them day after day.”
