The Nationalist Party’s working group dedicated to discussing the legalisation of cannabis was rendered largely “futile” after it became impossible for a decision on what the party’s position should be, sources have told The Malta Independent.
Speaking with The Malta Independent, party sources said that because the party’s working group was made up of people on extreme ends of the cannabis debate, it “wasn’t a surprise” when it became “impossible to take a decision” on the matter.
As a result, the sources said, the members of the working group pretty much gave up and looked to the parliamentary group to take the decision instead, knowing that whether they agreed with it or not, a “very conservative decision” was going to be taken.
The PN’s parliamentary group issued its stand on the government’s proposal for the legalisation of cannabis, which will be discussed in parliament in the coming days and weeks, on Friday, saying that the government’s proposals “would normalise and increase drug abuse in Malta”.
The party’s stand on the government’s proposal has long been a question mark: the PN failed to submit any feedback to the government’s white paper on the topic six months ago, but party leader Bernard Grech, although he described the proposal as a “vote-winning exercise” by the PL, seemed to have a luke-warm position towards it, even taking credit for changes to the proposed bill little over a month ago.
The PN’s failure to submit feedback to the white paper was, the party said, because it wanted to hold a wide consultation process with as many stakeholders as possible on the matter in order to formulate its policy.
To this end, the party had put together a working group on the subject.
This group included MPs Claudio Grech, Claudette Buttigieg, Karl Gouder, Therese Comodini Cachia, and Stephen Spiteri along with the PN’s political research president Martina Caruana, Team Start president Eve Borg Bonello, and the then-MZPN and now Executive Chairperson Joseph Grech, amongst others.
Sources said that while the different stakeholders were in fact consulted, it became near enough impossible to reach a decision on the matter within the working group owing to the divergent views of the people on the committee.
“After so many unsuccessful meetings, the entire thing became futile and everyone sort of gave up and looked to the parliamentary group [for a decision on the matter],” the sources explained.
A “very conservative” decision for what the party’s policy would be was, as a result, the expected outcome, they continued.
Another party source said that the younger generation of the party had been pushing for a more forward-thinking approach to the matter, but that the parliamentary group was largely not willing to budge in favour of any more cannabis legalisation.
The Malta Independent on Sunday this weekend reported that the parliamentary group’s decision had left some members of the party – particularly those in the party’s executive and administrative committees – fuming.
Friday’s parliamentary group statement in fact triggered internal commotion as members of the party’s executive and administrative committees felt they had been “excluded” from the decision which, they said, would cause more harm than good to the party’s electoral chances.
The members of the two committees learnt of the PN parliamentary group’s decision from news portals, which carried the group’s statement. Some of them were described as “fuming” at the way the parliamentary group ran roughshod over the committees on such an important matter.
“It is said that the party wants to attract the young voters, but what the parliamentary group did with its decision (on the cannabis bill) pushed them further away,” sources told the newspaper.
MaltaToday meanwhile delved into the parliamentary group meeting itself in a report on Sunday, saying that party leader Bernard Grech faced stiff opposition to what he had hoped would be a change of tack for the PN towards a more progressive – and youth-friendly – stance to some of its policies.
Such an idea however received little to no support, according to the report, with veteran MP Mario Galea particularly getting into a heated argument with Grech after the party leader suggested that MPs should not come to him complaining about the PN’s poor performances in political surveys if they continue to act in such a manner.
While cannabis for personal use was decriminalised in 2015, something which the PN back then had agreed with, the government is now proposing that people should be allowed to grow up to four cannabis plants and carry up to seven grams of the drug with them.
It also proposes the formation of so-called “cannabis associations” which would be NGOs licensed to grow cannabis on behalf of its signed-up members, and the formation of a new authority on the responsible use of cannabis.
The PN’s position on Friday was criticised by the Labour Party, who noted that the PN had first said – through Grech – that the cannabis bill as presented had copied its own proposals, but that now the party was saying that it is against the nature of the bill altogether.
“What is sure is that we have another confirmation of an Opposition Leader who has no sense of direction and leadership,” the PL said in its reactionary statement.