Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1185664
REMEMBER Gisela Feuz, any- one? Probably not. After all, it happened a long time ago… before the internet existed, if it is even conceivable to imagine that such a time ever existed at all. This also means that I would have to go all the way to the National Archives in Valletta (can you imagine?), and dig up articles written over 20 years ago, just to give a proper account of what actually hap- pened way back in 1997… Well, believe it or not, that is how journalists used to con- duct their daily chores, back in the age before everything became instantly accessible at the click of a mouse-button. As it happens, I caught the tail-end of that era myself – the first time I saw the inter- net at work was around 2004: and it was limited to just one computer, which we all had to queue up to use. But even I find it hard to remember the days when research had to be conducted by poring over the Biblioteca's (very impressive) microfiche catalogue of every newspaper ever published in the Maltese islands. The internet may have revolutionised the way the media works – indeed, it may even threaten the media's very existence – but in some ways, it has undeniably made us all… lazier. Nonetheless, the worldwide web can still prove a treasure- trove, even when researching events that predate its own existence by several years. A simple Google search, with the key-words 'Gisela Feuz Malta', threw up the following little nugget from a May 2014 press article: "One of the cases made the international headlines after a 16-year old Swiss student was imprisoned for six months when she was found in pos- session of under one gram of cannabis in 1997. "The student, Gisela Feuz, had admitted to bringing a small sachet of the drug with her from Switzerland in the aim of sharing it with her boyfriend. "She was imprisoned for a mandatory six-month period after a court found her guilty of importing drugs with the intent to traffic." Looking back, the Gisela Feuz case appears all the more shocking for a number of rea- sons: starting with the amount of marijuana for which the 16-year-old Swiss student was imprisoned for six months. 'Less than one gram'. I mean… not exactly Pablo Es- cobar material, now is it? Nor even Cheech and Chong, for that matter… Another reason concerns the fact that the government of Malta – the same government that draws up our country's drug laws – itself now peddles infinitely greater quantities of the exact same drug every day, under the guise of 'Medical Marijuana'. Amazing, isn't it? By simply inserting the word 'medi- cal' before any drug of one's choice, one also automatically alters the chemical composi- tion of the drug itself: making it at once 'beneficial', where before it was 'harmful'; and de facto legalising a crime (drug- trafficking) that is otherwise liable to a prison sentence of anywhere up to 25 years, depending on amount and circumstances. Can you imagine how much money we'll all be raking in when it comes to… 'Medical Cocaine'? To be honest I'm surprised we haven't cashed in on that one already. ('X'cuc hu Escobar', and all that…) But, with a huge effort, I shall resist the temptation to digress. The reason I chose to dig up the Gisela Feuz inci- dent today, is that… by golly, we've gone and done it again. This is how the latest case was reported this week: "[…] a court handed down [a six-month sentence for 6.5 grammes of marijuana to a 39-year old Maltese woman] who was discovered with a plant, which she admitted was for personal use. "The police thought differ- ently, insisting that she held six separate plants within one [single] pot. "Magistrate Natasha Galea Sciberras even noted that the amount was minimal and for personal use during her rul- ing, but still agreed with the police…" [Note: in case you're wonder- ing, I chose to name one but not the other because Gisela Feuz actually served her sen- tence in full, while the latter case is still at appeal stage.] Superficial differences aside – including the age and nationality of the accused, as well as the specific amounts involved (6.5 grams may be six times the other amount… but it's still next to zero, in trafficking terms) – these two cases have one crucial factor in common. Malta's drug laws left the magistrates concerned with no alternative but to impose a prison sentence in either case, even though they knew it was excessive. In Gisela Feuz's day, the government had enacted a law which made importation of any illicit drugs – regardless of type or quantity – punish- able by a mandatory prison sentence. It was in part a knee- jerk reaction to what can only be described as an explosion in drug use in Malta during the 1980s… but also, in my view, 24 OPINION maltatoday | SUNDAY • 17 NOVEMBER 2019 Raphael Vassallo This is your legal system on drugs... Miscarriages of justice don't come more blatantly than that, you know. And for drug use, too. I mean honestly… makes you wonder who's really on drugs here…