Two held in 'important' Msida drugs haul
A large amount of drugs, including ecstasy, mephedrome, cannabis resin and cannabis grass was found by the Police Drug Squad in a residence in Msida this afternoon.
Sources said the police, led by Inspector Pierre Grech, had been working on the case for several days.
The police also found other items used in drug trafficking.
The case is being seen as important since the people involved appeared to be supplying a number of 'drug distributors'.
At least two people are expected to be taken to court.
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Mr Saliba Francis
Jul 21st 2011, 09:45
" ...NO ONE ever got hurt with a spliff" of cannabis. (David Caruana)
Not true at all; that is a malicious false statement! Many thousands got hurt by the need to move on to more potent drugs of addiction when cannabis lost its allure for the hashish addict. Also there is proven medical evidence of a deteriotated brain function even after modest use of cannabis.
Mr Saliba Francis
Jul 21st 2011, 07:49
"Most fatal drug abuse stared with mother's milk ..... " (Angelo Cilia).
A most silly "post hoc, propter hoc" argument. Because breast feeding is practically universal as a start in life, it does not follow that all the disasters during later life are caused by mothers' milk.
Mr Saliba Francis
Jul 20th 2011, 20:35
@Angelo Cilia.
What do you mean by “first off the bat?” I am not talking “scary doom nonsense”. I am talking as an experienced medical doctor and a past director of Malta’s National Drug Intelligence Unit with first hand experience of the ravages caused by the abuse of addictive drugs locally and abroad. You are in no position to provide me with “news” on this subject!
Drug abuse victims/habitual criminals are usually introduced to the more dangerous drugs after an initial abuse of cannabis taken with the specific intent to disable the higher cerebral functions that distinguish humanity from the lower apes. What are your qualifications for espousing a return to the “opium dens” of the past simply because we already have a problem with alcoholism? Two wrongs never made a right.
I pray that in your lifetime you and your family will not come to regret your fascination with the liberalisation of dangerous drugs of addiction when someone dear to you and yours ends up on a mortuary slab, a prison cell or a treatment centre.
Mr charles azzopardi
Jul 20th 2011, 07:31
oh well , let us face it , a tax on cannnabis will do good to the Malta coffers and attract more tourists and also we will get to be like a Qat/Coca leaf munching society .. degenerated and good for nothing other than to smoke a fag ... if you tell me that cannabis smoking persons are better entrepreneurs , ok I accept it .. but try to prove .. that is what the country needs , people with good ideas not rotten society .
Maybe we can do a tax on lap dances too .. to improve the economy .. i am having a coffe not smoking .. ok !
Mr Robert Callus
Jul 19th 2011, 21:03
As soon as you arrive in Luqa airport a set of shining adverts greet you - Gambling (oops, it's gaming, no?).
Alcohol is used in nearly every social occasion. I'm sure the Prime Minister himself keeps some Whiskey and Vodka in his cabinet to treat visitor. Wine is drunk in church on a daily basis.
Both can wreck havoc in people's lives, turn them violent and break families. But those are Ok!
I don't agree with those who state that Marihuana is completely harmless. It isn't. But compared to the two vicious addictions I mentioned above, yes, it's child's play.
ronato said
Jul 19th 2011, 19:36
if the government legalizes the soft drugs , it can actually make a profit from it by taxes and control the amount being imported.
Trevor Lorenzo Mizzi
Jul 19th 2011, 22:25
Imported ?
Malta can grow some wonderful indica, and grow it all year round.
Such a shame that this wonderful herb is criminalized and demonized by governments for the sake and benefit of multinational corporations and their insatiable greed.
Dave Debono
Jul 19th 2011, 22:33
I totally agree!!!! I believe one day it will be. It is well known that a human can benefit from Marijuana more that from alcohol.
Mr Saliba Francis
Jul 20th 2011, 06:21
The distinction between "soft" and "hard" drugs of addiction is artificial and illusory.
Paul Smith
Jul 19th 2011, 19:31
Mr Mark Cassar
Cannabis will cease to be illegal when the short term thinking so called global elite realize that millions upon millions of people ignore the stupid law on cannabis - and that a law that so many diverse people in society ignore is no longer a law worth having
that;s like right now
Emmanuel Caruana
Jul 19th 2011, 19:00
Kieku biex tparlaw fil-vojt hadd ma jirbhilkhom. Ahjar tatu prosit lill Korp tal-Pulizija ta' qabda bhal dik, mela fejn jidrilkhom inthom tipprotegu lit-tfal taghkhom ja qabda ipokriti.
Paul Smith
Jul 19th 2011, 18:46
Mr Saliba
i dont understand the point your trying to make? Cannabis never killed anyone, it is impossible to die from using Cannabis, impossible. It's been used as a medicine for the last 10,000 years.
In fact (i know this may not go down well with religous people) but many of the visions that came to prophets were through the use of mind altering substances.
I say lets ban alcohol, it destroys families and communities - lets see how well that goes down amongst the hundreds of thousands that enjoy that deadly substance!
Mr Saliba Francis
Jul 20th 2011, 06:18
Cannabinols, the active ingredients of C. sativa, have been proved to cause brain damage even with moderate use. Most of the fatal victims of drug abuse started their downhill course with Cannabis when habituation to it proved insufficient to satisfy the craving.
You are admitting that psychotropic drugs (e.g. peyote, opiates and cannabis) have been abused for religious and for criminal purposes to induce hallucinatory states. You may not know that "hashish" is actually the source of the word "assassin". The depradations of alcohol and cigarette smoking afflicting today's society are notriously well-known. That is not an excuse for magnifying social sore of the abuse further by legalising more mind-altering drugs that are addictive and immediately fatal in much smaller doses.
It is now much too late to ban alcohol and smoking. That is the reason why today's society is deeply and expensively involved in harm reduction mothods for the damage caused by these two substances. There is no justification for opening the floodgates wide open to all sorts of drugs of addiction.
angelo cilia
Jul 20th 2011, 16:28
@ Mr Francis Saliba,
Well, I will tell you, first off the bat
you love talking scary doom nonsense Mr.Saliba, The modern word 'assassin' is derived from this name. However, Amin Malouf states that "The truth is different. According to texts that have come down to us from Alamut, Hassan-i Sabbah liked to call his disciples Asasiyun, meaning people who are faithful to the Asās, meaning 'foundation' of the faith. This is the word, misunderstood by foreign travelers, that seemed similar to 'hashish'.
Even the name "marijuana" sometimes spelled "marihuana" when a more sinister effect is to be implied was chosen as a name for good old cannabis from the Mexican slang name for cannabis by Harry Anslinger in the 1930s to demonize this plant that has been safely used for 5 thousand years, all this so cannabis is made illegal and its products do not compete with oil and cotton and alcohol and pharmaceuticals. Remember, once Alcohol was made legal again in the USA in 1933, Anslinger and his agents were out of a job as anti booze enforcers for the 1919 Volstead Act of alcohol prohibition. I suppose the farcical 1930s film "Reefer Madness" is your guide to the truth on cannabis.
Most fatal drug abuse stared with mother's milk then soft drinks, then beer and finally hard spirits.
Get it through your head, cannabis is not physically addictive, unlike alcohol or tobacco or coffee and there is no fatal dose with cannabis unlike alcohol.
I got news for you, cannabis is here to stay and society better learn to accept it instead of making criminals of people who choose to smoke a joint instead of drinking a tot of Johnny Walker, the floodgate has been swung open decades ago. If you ever tried cannabis for medical reasons or other reasons you would not be spouting such gloom and doom nonsense.
Mr joe briffa
Jul 19th 2011, 18:09
Legal....we are not even mature enough to have a transport change,just imagine cannabis being legal in Malta....when we are so mentally primitive and a conservative goverment that cannot even accept peoples opinion over divorce...Malta...sinking inn its own problems....
David Caruana
Jul 19th 2011, 20:42
"we (the maltese) are not even mature enough to have a transport change"
Both you and me are maltese, I wasn't involved with the transport change and probably neither were you. So don't say "we".
I don't consider myself mentally primitive and I'd bet my next paycheck you aren't either. So again "we" doesn't fit.
If your country is sinking, throw her a lifeline ;-)
Trevor Lorenzo Mizzi
Jul 19th 2011, 16:56
It is only cannabis, what is the big deal ?
Mr Karl Consiglio
Jul 19th 2011, 16:43
They catch so many people every year, the demand/clientele must be high, we ought to have a consultative referendum to find out
David Caruana
Jul 19th 2011, 15:46
Such articles will be fun to read in the future, when cannabis will be legal.
It will be no different from reading a 1940 US paper with an article reading "Large amount of whisky found at NY residence"
Der Agius
Jul 19th 2011, 16:49
X'garanzija ghandek li l-cannabis ser tkun legali? Jekk qrajt xi artiklu jew hemm xi haga bil-miktub, ikkoregini.
U billi l-cannabis issir legali, dawn xorta inqabdu b'pussess ta' ecstasy u mephedrome.
J lanzon
Jul 19th 2011, 16:54
agreed
Paul Smith
Jul 19th 2011, 17:13
There is not one single reason cannabis should be illegal - i wont waste my time posting the scientific facts about Cannabis, to some Maltese (less read) cannabis is Heroin - Bless them
You can see the facts here: http://clear-uk.org/
If cannabis is so dangerous, why oh why was GW Pharmaceutical given a license to grow 200 tons a year In England extract CBD and THC and bottle it and call it sativex?
Sativex has been licensed and marketed all across the western world now! Sativex is cannabis with a government green light!
Cannabis will only be legal when our parasitic governments find a way to make money from it - and they have - it's called Sativex.
It is immoral and inhuman to arrest and discriminate against someone whom chooses to use cannabis rather than deadly alcohol.(Alcohol is 1000 times more dangerous than cannabis-proven) (there are no conclusive studies linking cannabis to mental illness - NONE - just could, might - there are links to alcohol and psychosis though) We need a regulated cannabis market for adults only, card carrying users and dispensaries to keep it out of kids hands.
The legal age for cannabis in Malta is 20 Euros - think about that you prohibitionists!!
if you support prohibition you support Organized crime, you support terrorism, money laundering and murder and there is very very real chance your children will be introduced to a product that is not regulated and could be dangerous to them! Would you let your kids go to Paceville and drink illegal un-regulated badly made alcohol?
Mr Saliba Francis
Jul 19th 2011, 17:33
Such a great pity that so many thousands who will have died as a result of the drug habit or who would have fallen victims of the crimes associated with drug abuse would not be around to enjoy the fun!
Mr Mark Cassar
Jul 19th 2011, 17:39
and what makes you believe that cannabis will be legal?
David Caruana
Jul 19th 2011, 18:16
@ Francis Saliba
Boo-hoo! Always the pity card! I was talking about cannabis and NO ONE ever got hurt with a spliff.
@ all
Cannabis will be legalised, there is no other option. You just need to wait and see ;-)
A Camilleri
Jul 21st 2011, 15:34
I agree with Paul! plus i think if Malta used cannabis it will be a bit more relaxed and chilled out dont you think? :) they should stop wasting their time and money on these small busts!!