Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1491153
maltatoday | SUNDAY • 29 JANUARY 2023 OPINION 10 Raphael Vassallo OPINION Who came up with those new 'cannabis rules', anyway? Cheech and Chong? LOOK: I know cannabis is sup- posed to have been 'decriminal- ised', and all that... so in theory, it's 'supposed' to be OK to actual- ly smoke it, once in a while (even though, funnily enough – a full year after decriminalisation – it still remains impossible to ac- tually acquire any through legal channels: but more of that later.) And besides: if you want to ac- quire the necessary experience to regulate something like the can- nabis market… well, indulging in a little 'puff', here and there, might not actually be the worst place to start. But Jesus, man! I said 'a little puff'… not 'bogart the entire joint'! Leaving aside the old max- im that 'moderation is key' (which applies to cannabis, just as much as everything else); and that there may be other people who also want 'a little puff' of their own (so just pass the damn thing around, will you?)… no, what I'm trying to say here is that: cannabis still remains a 'mind-altering drug', you know. Which also means that – if it ever WERE to be properly regu- lated, once and for all – it would probably have to come com- plete with a 'Surgeon General's Warning', along the lines of: "Do not consume before driv- ing; operating heavy machinery; or doing anything important that requires lucidity, concen- tration, and having both feet planted firmly on the ground (such as, for instance: writing out a job application; testifying in court; or legislating on na- tional matters that affect literal- ly thousands of people…)" In other words: if you plan to write rules regulating 'cannabis clubs' – and especially, if your stated aim is to "cut out the [black market] dealers, and en- sure that users get their cannabis from [regulated] sources" – well, don't smoke too much of the stuff yourself beforehand, that's all. Otherwise, you might end up with the sort of 'half-baked' (pun intended) shambles that The Association for the Responsible Use of Cannabis (ARUC) came out with last Friday: which – far from 'cutting out any street-deal- ers' – is more likely to end up (as criminologist Sandra Scicluna had warned, back in November 2021) 'facilitating the black mar- ket' instead. Right: with that (very helpful, I hope) 'health warning' out of the way… where do I even begin? Tell you what: let's start with the one area in which absolute- ly everyone, in this country, can claim to be an overnight expert. MONEY. According to the new rules unveiled last Friday: anyone wishing to apply for a licence to start up a 'cannabis social club' in Malta – and the applications open on February 28, by the way – will have to: a) fork out E1,000, just to ap- ply (with no guarantee that the licence itself will be awarded, of course; and no mention, so far, of any refund if it isn't). b) If successful, the candidate will have to choose between a number of different licences, var- ying in price according to the size of the club's (prospective, at this stage) membership. The max- imum size is capped at 500; the minimum, 50. So far, so good… but… c) The minimum licence cost (for 50 members) has been fixed at a staggeringly prohibitive €8,750. And that's for a licence that will expire after only one month; after which, the holder will have to renew; and then keep renewing – presumably (until otherwise clarified) at the same price – every three months... IN- DEFINITELY. d) We are also told that the cost of a licence increases, depending on the size of the club; but not, so far, by how much. Now: I find it highly unlikely that it will simply go up by an additional €8,750, every time the club grows by 50 new members (in which case, a licence for a 500-member club would end up costing a scarcely credible €175,000, every three months; or more than half-a-mil- lion, a year.) But even with a much more realistic, incremental increase of just €1,000, per 100 members (the same as the application fee) it would still set you back by an- ywhere up to €50 or €60,000, per annum. All of which raises a rather obvi- ous question. Who the heck does the ARUC even think is going to be applying for these licences, an- yway? Bill Gates? Jeff Bezos? Elon Musk? Joseph Portelli? (Actual- ly, wait: he'll probably have been signed up by AC Milan by then… just you wait and see!) But you get the general drift. Who else, in this country – or even in the entire Universe, for that matter – has enough 'throw- away money', to actually afford spending tens of thousands of euros a year – just on licence fees; before factoring in salaries, organisational costs, etc. – on what is effectively a 'non-profit' association: which not only al- so has to "reinvest all proceeds into the organisation itself"; but (separately) also "contribute a portion of their sales to a harm reduction fund"? I somehow doubt it's going to be the few odd-thousand Maltese resident 'home-growers': who have been (legally) cultivating up to four plants, on their own prop- erty, over the past year; and some of whom might have been look- ing forward to an opportunity to finally 'regularise' their own posi- tion (given that it is currently ille- gal for them to actually sell any of their own, legally-harvested pro- duce… or even, for that matter, to simply 'give it away'.) Now: I stand to be corrected, of course…. but I was under the impression that the entire point of these regulations, was to both provide 'a safe, legal channel' for users to acquire their cannabis; and also, to provide home-grow- ers with an alternative to 'selling their weed illegally' (either to friends and acquaintances; or – probably, only in rare cases – by selling it to the criminal organisa- tions which control the cannabis racket). Because that, as far as I am aware, is how the situation stands at present. Despite a legal reform, in December 2021, that 'decrim- inalised cannabis' (and also le- galised the home-cultivation of up to four plants): there is still, effectively, no real alternative to the black market at all: either for users looking to buy; or growers looking to sell. So the whole 'cannabis social club' idea, from its very incep- tion, was to close both those loopholes at once: thus (in theo- ry, anyway) also dealing a devas- tating blow to the black market itself… which would – from one moment, to the next – no longer enjoy its ill-gotten, unchallenged monopoly. But… well, this is why legis- lating on such matters requires 'lucidity, concentration, and feet- on-the-ground'. The only way to achieve that objective, in prac- tice, is to not just provide legal pathways for people to by-pass the black market, altogether… but also, to ensure that those pathways are more attractive, to Tommy Chong lights up in the classic stoner comedy from the 1970s, Up in Smoke