Updated: Fisherman convicted in drugs trial - jailed for 18 years

Ben Cassar

Mar 20th 2010, 09:51

@ Mary Pace - so you would prefer all your sons drink and fight or drive drunk rather then chill out with some friends smoking some herb in a safe enviroment?? More people die or ruin other peoples life or commit crimes due to alcohol! and regarding harder drugs, A survey done in 2009 involving 645,650 Europeans between the ages of 14 and 21 - 83% said they tried harder drugs before smoking cannabis. Also because something was made illegal so many decades ago Doesn't mean it should be now, maybe things were different and it needed to be illegal then.
Animals all adapt to the environment - our narrow minded society is needs to be changed and we must adapt socially not only physically in this world. Legalizing cannabis will drive ''gangsters' out and at the end of the day, one chooses to smoke doesn't mean because it will be legal everyone will begin smoking!!

@ Paul Smith - So true

Charles Taliana

Mar 19th 2010, 13:40

Lets go for an APPEAL agasinst the sentence now, and good luck!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Charles Sammut

Mar 19th 2010, 12:39

I find the price of €582 (LM250) per kilo unrealistic and nowhere near close to the real figure. According to the documents linked below, €1,000 is a more realistic wholesale price in Malta. Something does not square up here. Keep in mind that this Egyptian is saying that he was to SELL it at €582, so his cost must have been much lower. Mr Zammit would not have done this deal for nothing, either. So he must have acquired it for 582 minus Mobarak's profit minus Zammit's profit. At this rate he was paid to take it!!

http://www.unodc.org/pdf/WDR_2006/wdr2006_chap5_cannabis.pdf
http://www.idmu.co.uk/cannabis-price-trends-94-08.htm

Pavlaki Pano Aroditis

Mar 19th 2010, 11:16

Mr Smith. Your comments betray the typical woolly-headed romanticism of a crusader for cannabis use. I can understand that cannabis is used for "medicinal purposes" but to call it a "miracle" is naive credulity. I can also understand that some people may use it for recreational purposes. But this "gentleman" was importing this material (14 kg of it) not for personal use, but to make a financial killing, duplicitously engaging an insecure Egyptian to move the stuff, cunningly bursting into tears in court saying that he was "framed by some (unspecified) enemy", and deceitfully planting the material in someone else's neighbouring field. In Cyprus we say "to be a good thief, you have to know how to hide". This man was neither. He was a ruthless exploiter of other people's weaknesses, keen to make money out of illegality, and a dissembler. A public health campaigner he was not, and I am surprised that your cannabis crusade extends to supporting such specimens of humanity and attacking the considered opinions of a jury.

Eric Soames

Mar 19th 2010, 10:55

Here's a balanced report on the use and effects of cannabis:

The conclusions should keep the debate going. Yes, dangerous as tobacco and alcohol and no, no evidence of physical dependency or being a gateway drug. The last line of this article reads: '* Many long-term users of cannabis lead normal, healthy lives which they find enhanced by recreational use of the drug'.

mary Pace

Mar 19th 2010, 10:45

PLEASE Mr Paul Smith, leave our country alone, if in your country are more open minded about cannabis, thats your country,soft or not it's still DRUGS!! they start on cannabis ,from that they go on HARD drugs, & I got 5 sons to worry about , so who sells drugs,YES they got what they deserve, like Mr king said,
If they can';t do the time ,they don't do the crime!!!!!!!

Paul Smith

Mar 18th 2010, 22:12

Mr.king

In the UK our judges are a bit more open minded and reasonable when it comes to cannabis use and production, our judges are inteligent enough to understand that cannabis is a soft drug less harmful than many legal drugs. There are an estimated 5 million cannabis users in the UK and some use it to treat illness. How could you possibly lock up 5 million Brits? Wake up Mr. King and talk sense instead of nonsense. 18 years for 14 kg of cannabis is draconian. At the current rate of convictions for soft drugs in malta, it wont be long until the prison is full to bursting. Prison over crowding is a dangerous situation. The war on soft drugs must end. Who made the law courts God to serve judgment on one of natures miracles called cannabis?

Paul Smith

Mar 18th 2010, 21:53

S. King it was Cannabis not heroin or coke for crying out load. cannabis killed no one in the last 10,000 years. I bet you like a Glass of wine or a bottle dont you? Maybe Beer? or Scotch? Whats your poison?
Proven fact is your drugs of choice alcohol or maybe Tobacco kill millions world wide, but i guess you are a retired boomer with your head stuck tightly in the sand.

S.King

Mar 18th 2010, 21:20

Got what they deserved!

Wish there was as tough prison sentences in the UK, but sadly there isn't.
Slap on the wrist in UK and plenty of suspended sentences only.

Paul Smith

Mar 18th 2010, 20:29

assuming the drugs were cannabis, were they tested to see if it was real? euro 582 per kilo is very very cheap - must have been really bad stuff since it was going so cheap? maybe a few thousand melted vinyl records with some henna thrown in for good measures.
This is why the market for cannabis should be legalized taxed and regulated for strickly over 21 year olds in dutch style coffee shops.
wine, scotch and spirits as well as tobacco are far far far more dangerous than cannabis, how about making them illegal and imprisoning people for use and smuggling once band - that would never happen - MP's drink scotch and the preisthood likes a few glasses of wine