I saw him for the first time outside Mater Dei Hospital having a cigarette. He was looking lost, forlorn and all alone. Every puff he took of that cigarette he just stared into nothingness and I felt sorry for him.

It’s not unusual for a worker in hospital to start a conversation with a visitor and I did just that. He had just come out of prison after serving a sentence of five years for robbery. I found it strange that he looked so miserable after getting out of that dump and I told him so. He looked into my eyes – his were bright blue and had tears in them. I am a drug addict now, he stuttered... I became a drug addict in prison.

My heart was pounding as if I had been personally given some bad news and I wanted to cry for this young man. Where were the officers when the drugs were handed out? Where was the prison director? I know that drugs in prison is a worldwide problem but it seems that here it has grown out of proportion.

I mentioned Sedqa, San Blas and Oasi to the young man because it was all I could do. It seems that in Malta being locked up in prison is not enough, somehow they have to find themselves locked away again, this time to get better.

Prison is not a place of rehabilitation any more but a drug pit.