A few days ago Parliament approved legislation regulating the legalisation of cannabis. The protestations of rehabilitation experts, professionals and other concerned bodies – and later their suggestions to mitigate the effects of the proposed measures - were totally ignored. The government which in 2012 had solemnly promised to listen has, nine years later, contracted some severe sort of age-related hearing loss and become stone-deaf.
Many are asking what will happen now. None of us is endowed with
precognitive powers, so what the future really holds is a mystery. However, the
highly-educated guess of most of my colleagues, who are more knowledgeable about drug-related matters than I am, is that the doomsday scenarios
envisaged by some, featuring thousands of our fellow-countrymen becoming
enslaved to the devil weed and streets replete with mindless zombies staggering
about (I exaggerate, but you get my drift), are the stuff of comic-books, and
not tomorrow’s reality.
So, no end-times panoramas but plenty of negative outcomes not to look
forward to: an increase in use, a smallish rise in the number of cannabis
dependent-individuals, some further cases of cannabis-related psychosis and
quite possibly higher numbers of drug-induced accidents (some of which will
result in death) both at the work-place and on the roads. There will be the
inevitable irresponsible idiots who will grow/smoke the stuff at home and not
exercise due control over their children. Possibly the most underrated effect
of all is that recovering addicts will find it harder to resist the lure of
relapse with cannabis becoming more easily and widely available. All avoidable
problems and heartaches.
There of course will be inevitable positive effects as a result of the
new the legislative regime: trafficking will be quite substantially reduced
(though it will never die out, in much the same way as the contraband of
cigarettes and alcohol persists), a small proportion of police resources can be
diverted elsewhere, and the quality of the cannabis sold will improve.
All in all, we would have been considerably better off with a tweaking
of the legislative framework to ensure more comprehensive decriminalisation
rather than the virtual legalisation and
normalisation of cannabis use. Experts have tried to warn the government, but
Robert Abela’s outfit apparently does not suffer wise men – or women - gladly.
Doubtlessly within a few months, the hullabaloo surrounding this bill
will die down and the process of mainstreaming of the substance will be
smoothly completed with the (few) casualties quietly buried and hospitalised
with the other victims of life.
However, on another level after Tuesday’s vote, life may never be the
same again. The enactment of this legislation has signalled another
psychological milestone - a crossing of a mental Rubicon, as it were. In much
the same way as divorce paved the way for the legal sanctioning of behaviour
and attitudes deemed to fall within the realm of civil rights, and many people
- previously opposed to civil unions, adoption by same-sex couples and same-sex
marriages - just accepted their enactment without a murmur, so the legalisation
of cannabis may unleash a spate of “reforms’’ previously undreamt of among us,
which will also receive Parliamentary approval.
How long will it take for the argument to be brought up that, now that cannabis is legal, it is discriminatory for
users of heroin and cocaine to be prosecuted for carrying small(ish) amounts of
their drug of choice and that society would be better off with these substances
being brought into the mainstream and regulated, just like dope? If objections
to the fact that legalisation will quite likely result in increased use of
cannabis had no effect on the executive and our legislators, why should the
esteemed ladies and gentlemen (go away, Commissioner Dalli) be swayed by the
same argument in relation to coke and smack? Does anyone honestly think that
cocaine and heroin will be not liberalised, in more or less the same way
cannabis has been, fairly soon?
The government (or at least those elements within it evidently bent on
transforming our country into a liberal ‘paradise’ where most things, include
some hitherto considered immoral, go) has already chosen to tread the path
conveniently paved by the divorce referendum. The gate to this paradise has
been pushed open even further by yet another triumph of the liberal lobby – and
the dismantling of another set of psychological barriers to changes so far
deemed shocking by most of us.
Many are afraid that one of items on the 'liberal' agenda is
something even more sinister than the legalisation of coke and heroin with all
their lethal consequences. What was inconceivable even a decade ago is now, if
not quite at the door, certainly this side of the horizon. The great fear for
those of us who consider human life to be the primary value is that some time
with the next few years abortion will, in some shape or form, be introduced.
Of course, just like cannabis, and other
‘reforms’ the killing of human life in the womb will not appear in any
electoral manifesto as a clear and solemn promise. Rather, an ambiguous
reference to a “discussion’’ will quite likely be made as per the tried and
tested blueprint. Proposal 16 of Section 16 of the PL’s 2017 Manifesto stated that “the next step is to start a discussion […] about the use of cannabis
for recreational purposes.’’
Any reasonable individual
would have interpreted that phrase as meaning that there would be a discussion
about WHETHER to introduce legislation legalising pot. Instead, right from the
off, we were presented with the intention to introduce the legislation and were
most generously offered the possibility to discuss HOW to introduce it. Commissioner Dalli can now smugly
enjoy another gloat at our expense.
Robert Abela who had stated he would oppose anybody who sought to introduce abortion, recently made very clear noises about a “discussion’’ about abortion although, in fairness, he also mentioned the
need to uphold the rights of unborn human life.
The nightmare scenario: this “discussion’’ will be
mentioned in the 2022 Electoral Manifesto in roughly the same terms as the
proposal to hold a discussion on cannabis. And do you know what? Voters will not
give a blind bit of notice to the implications of that promise. What with the
economy still apparently doing well and the Partit Nazzjonalista looking like a badly-rehearsed vaudeville
act, the PL will be resoundingly returned. And then the ‘discussion’ will
start...
The notion that cannabis is a gateway drug
may have been practically debunked in so far as the conceptualisation of the
addiction itinerary is concerned, but in the Maltese context the
legalisation of the drug may yet prove to be the gateway to a horrendously and
hellishly bloody
future.
I hope to God I’m wrong.
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