The Nationalist Party believes drug users should receive treatment rather than face criminal action but this must not be an indefinite “get-out-of-jail-free card”.
PN deputy leader Beppe Fenech Adami yesterday said personal drug use should be treated as a health issue rather than a criminal offence but cautioned against sending out the message “doing drugs is OK”.
“Society owes young people caught in possession of illegal drugs for personal use a second chance but repeat offenders should eventually end up in court,” he told Times of Malta while spelling out the PN’s stand on drug decriminalisation. The government has promised to release a White Paper on this issue in the coming days.
Dr Fenech Adami said the PN parliamentary group had an intense debate on the matter and unanimously agreed to support the stand in favour of a more humane way of dealing with drug users.
“Experience shows us that taking young people to court for simple drug possession has not worked and if we want to be honest, instead of solving the problem we have broken the lives of youngsters and their families,” Dr Fenech Adami said. However, the PN wanted a zero-tolerance approach towards drug trafficking and those who lined their pockets from the illegal trade by keeping the harsh penalties that included the possibility of a life sentence.
The proposal will see individuals caught with illegal drugs for personal use appearing in front of a board that guides them to find help rather than be dragged to court. The exemption from criminal proceedings will apply for a time window or a number of offences and will not be indefinite.
“We can discuss whether criminal action should be taken after the second or third offence but our focus must be finding the best way to help people kick their habit,” he said.
Dr Fenech Adami said a law on decriminalisation should not draw a distinction between different drugs as long as the circumstances and amounts caught denoted personal use.
“If we differentiate between different drugs we would send the wrong message that some are less harmful than others,” he said.
The party also opposed a legal definition of personal use by establishing maximum quantities for individual drugs, which existed in some countries that had decriminalised sim-ple possession.
Dr Fenech Adami said legal thresholds for drug quantities would make the law inflexible.
“The police should have the discretion to determine whether the case at hand is one of simple possession depending on the circumstances,” he said.
The PN would also oppose decriminalising the cultivation of cannabis for personal consumption but wanted simple drug possession crimes removed from the police conduct certificate after a period of time.
Asked what prompted the party to adopt this half-way approach to drug decriminalisation, Dr Fenech Adami said the party had to respond to societal change.
He brushed aside a suggestion that this was a reaction to the fact that the State’s incessant efforts to battle drugs had failed.
“The war on drugs is a continuous effort and could never be won or lost but drug use has become a cheaper habit and cuts across all social strata.
“We have to realise that drug users have a health problem and we would like to see this addressed by giving them a second chance before the problem escalates into a more expensive habit that leads to criminality.”
He acknowledged that people were confused about the distinction between decriminalisation and legalisation, insisting politicians had a duty to explain the difference between the two.
ksansone@timesofmalta.com