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Valletta, Malta
Valletta, Malta
Malta, a tiny nation in the Mediterranean Sea, has just become the first European nation to fully legalize marijuana. It did so by an act of Parliament as 2021 ended, opening the door to legal cannabis to the rest of the European Union.
The law was originally introduced by Owen Bonnici, the Maltese minister for equality, research and innovation, and it aims to reduce criminal trafficking of marijuana as well as ending the oppression of marijuana consumers without glorifying marijuana use. Parliament approved the bill 36-27.
This new law is distinct from the legalization bills seen in the United States, as it explicitly bans for-profit cannabis businesses. Instead, marijuana sales must be handled by nonprofit organizations, which can sell a maximum of 50 grams of product to each customer per month. Maltese law now allows individuals to grow their own marijuana plants, however, up to four plants. It remains illegal to consume marijuana in public, and one can only possess seven grams of cannabis on their person while out and about, but the punishment is light, a fine of less than 100€ without any threat of arrest or permanent note on the person’s record.
As such, Malta became the third nation in the world to fully legalize marijuana, after Uruguay in 2013 and Canada in 2018. Other countries have legalized the possession and use of marijuana, such as Georgia and South Africa, but there is no legal system of distribution, unlike in Malta.
Malta snatched the title of third country with legal marijuana from under the noses of several other European nations. Germany’s new government pledged to fully legalize it in the immediate future; Luxembourg is set to legalize it by mid-2022; Italy is gearing up for a referendum aiming to legalize possession and home cultivation of cannabis. Outside of Europe, Mexico is under orders from its Supreme Court to legalize recreational marijuana, although the country’s lawmakers have been dragging their feet, allowing Malta and potentially other countries to enter history in their country’s stead.
Game Changer
After half-a-century of oppression, marijuana is seemingly on the verge of complete reform across the entire European Union. Due to the free circulation of goods and people, any citizen of any member country of the Union can now freely purchase legal weed in Malta, which is a game-changer for neighboring nations now under pressure to react.
The European Union had been relying on the Netherlands’ policy of tolerating the (absolutely illegal) consumption of marijuana in its famous coffee shops for decades, making Amsterdam one of the most attractive tourist destinations on the continent. Now that one country offers actually legal weed rather than promising that police will turn a blind eye, up to $10 billion in annual tourism revenue is set to be diverted away from Amsterdam and towards Malta and any country that follows the E.U.’s tiniest member in legalizing adult-use marijuana. The Netherlands itself might need to rehaul its national cannabis policy to stay relevant.
Up until December 2021, all legal cannabis options were located in the Americas, mostly North America. Now that it breached the border of the E.U., other member nations will be forced to act swiftly, be it by agreeing to reform or doubling down on repression. Just like U.S. states that banned cannabis saw their residents drive over state borders and come home with their bags full of legal weed purchased in the states that legalized it, European countries will not be able to keep ignoring the reality of cannabis’ popularity.
Only one question remains: Which European countries will choose to do the rational thing and legalize it, and which countries will channel their inner GOP and outwardly embrace Prohibition? The latter might discover, like Wisconsin did, that going against the march of history simply means diverting mountains of potential revenue into the pockets of your smarter neighbors.
