Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1474369
maltatoday | SUNDAY • 24 JULY 2022 8 INTERVIEW Towards a 'human rights-based' In 2018, Malta became one of the first European countries to fully decriminalise cannabis for medicinal purposes; fol- lowed up by a broader reform to (within limits) decriminalise the drug for recreational purposes, too. For people brought up in a very different Malta – where drug-users were routinely crim- inalised – the contrast is rather striking. Yet it also forms part of what appears to be an inter- national movement: away from 'prohibitionism', and towards a 'harm-reduction' approach. First of all: how do you account for this trend, yourself? I think there are a lot of factors involved. You cannot pinpoint just one force, which is pushing some countries to go towards a decriminalized – or at least, more regulated - cannabis mod- el. In fact, decriminalisation itself is not even all that 'new', really: if you look at individual countries, and how their drug legislation has evolved over the decades, you will find that the process has ac- tually been ongoing for around 20 or 30 years. But yes: in the past decade, there have been a lot more countries going in that direction… includ- ing some which were previously considered highly conservative, on such issues. It came as a sur- prise to many, for instance, that Thailand [which formerly had the death-penalty for drug-of- fences] has now decriminalized cannabis: even though here are still certain issues, and the law itself needs to be adjusted. None- theless, it remains a fact that even countries which were known for their very draconian drug pol- icies, are beginning to change their approach. Even if you look at how the international community talks about the issue, today: there has been a change in tone, in the past 10 years… for example, in how the UN Special rapporteur for Health has been reporting about PWUD [people who use drugs]. Then you have other UN institu- tions, calling for a decriminalized system… But the main problem is that the UN Drug Control Conven- tions of 1961, 1971 and 1988, still act as the main body of interna- tional law, when it comes to na- tional approaches to drug legisla- tion. And those conventions are highly prohibitive: having been drawn up at a time when there was a full-on 'War on Drugs'. However: even within those conventions, there were always certain provisions that allowed for the possibility of a less 'crimi- nalised' approach. This is, in fact, why certain countries – such as The Netherlands, for instance – started to decriminalize all the way back in the 1970s. Already back then, it was clear that 'locking people up'; or 'threatening them with prison'; or – as someone recently sug- gested – 'hoping they will hit rock-bottom, so that they seek treatment'… none of that is con- ducive, either to reducing the prevalence of drug use; nor even to improving the health of the person using drugs. Would you say, then, that Mal- ta's own recent policy of de- criminalization, was inspired by a similar realization that past drug strategies were simply 'not working'? Up to a point, yes. And not just in Malta, by the way: in fact, the first thing I pointed out, in my article last week, was that: "The World Drug Report of 2021 ex- plains that despite a coordinat- ed international approach to address drug use in society, the number of drug users increased by 22% between 2010 and 2019." And even 10 years earlier, the UN Special Rapporteur for health had denounced the failure of cur- rent drug policies, as "constitut- ing a direct infringement to the Right to Health for People Who Use Drugs." This is something we can easi- ly see, just by looking back at the actual outcomes of Malta's drug policies, over the years. For in- stance, we had the case of Daniel Holmes: where, unfortunately, a person's life was ruined, for more than 10 years, because of our draconian approach to cannabis. We also have other cases that are still ongoing: such as the fact that people are now being arrested for 'CBD flowers' [a medicinal ex- tract of the cannabis plant, that has no psychoactive properties]: which you could almost describe as 'finding a new way' to crimi- nalise people, in spite of the re- cent administrative changes. Because even though the law now establishes what constitutes a 'narcotic drug', and what does not… there are still interpreta- tions which continue to crim- inalise people, over substances which have otherwise been 'de- criminalised'. In the case of CBD, it's because the legislator did not update the Dangerous Drugs Or- KAREN MAMO, a drug-policy researcher specialising in harm-reduction, argues that the 'prohibitionist' approach to drug legislation is not conducive to reducing the prevalence of drug use; and even less, to improving the health of the person using drugs Raphael Vassallo rvassallo@mediatoday.com.mt