The weekend saw the – perhaps surprising – continuation of a debate which will likely be one of the more talked about social factors in the run up to the general election, as the Nationalist Party (finally) gave its opinion on the proposal to legalise cannabis.

In a statement, the PN said that its parliamentary group had said that the bill as proposed by the government would “normalise and increase drug abuse in our country.”

“The PN’s parliamentary group is not in favour of having a prevalent culture of drug abuse in our country,” the party said in a statement.

The statement seems to give a more unequivocal conclusion to an issue for which the PN’s handling has been bizarre at best, and downright shambolic at worst.

First of all – the PN’s opinion on the cannabis law comes a whole six months after the feedback period for the government’s white paper on the same law – a white paper which Bernard Grech bizarrely suggested didn’t actually exist in an interview last September.

The party had insisted that it was conducting its own very extensive consultation exercise on the bill before coming out with an opinion.

 After being six months late, one would have expected that its position would have been explained in something more than a 214-word statement – and that it wouldn’t have been seemingly based on the long-disproven idea that cannabis somehow serves as a gateway drug for other drugs.

Furthermore, it turns out that – as The Malta Independent reported – the PN’s parliamentary group didn’t even consult the party’s own executive before coming out with the party’s official position.  If the party cannot seemingly have consultation between its own internal entities, one must question how much consultation is had actually managed with those outside of the party. 

It is truly a case of the left hand having absolutely no idea what the right hand is doing – something which definitely doesn’t inspire faith in the party, given that it wants to govern the country.

Bernard Grech himself has put himself in the cross-hairs of justified criticism given how he has flip-flopped from one view to another on this issue.

In August, he had said that the law should tackle how cannabis can be purchased, and just last month when the bill was tabled in Parliament, the PN leader actually expressed his satisfaction that the government had amended its proposals in line with what he had said.

The PN leader even went as far as taking credit for the changes, saying that it was another instance where the Opposition had made change happen.

It begs belief that little over a month later, the same party which Grech leads is now totally against the bill – even though it’s a bill which the Opposition had apparently inspired change in itself.

At risk of sounding partisan, the PL was absolutely right in its reactionary statement in highlighting the sheer confusion between what Grech has said and what the party has done.

In a situation where the PN is clearly doing its utmost to attract younger demographics – a younger demographic which is more progressive about matters such as this – its handling of this issue (not necessarily the fact that it has disagreed with cannabis legalisation, to be clear) has been a disaster from beginning to end.

The PN already has a mountain to climb come the next general election.  Handling issues in such a disorganised, contradictory, and confusing manner is not going to help any sliver of a chance that it has at all.