Medical Marijuana Is About To Become More Accessible In Malta

Tim Diacono

Malta’s law regulating medical marijuana is about to become less restricted, Prime Minister Joseph Muscat has announced.

“Cabinet will start discussing changes to the law regulating medical marijuana in November,” Muscat told a media briefing yesterday. “It is only when we update the law on medical marijuana that we’ll start discussing possible legalisation for personal use.”

Medical marijuana was first regulated in the drug reform of 2015 but, with so many restrictions on its prescription, not a single Maltese patient has yet been treated with it.

Prime Minister Joseph Muscat has pledged looser laws regulating medical marijuana
As it stands, patients who want access to medical marijuana must be prescribed the drug by either an oncologist, a neurologist, a psychologist or an anaesthesiologist as well as permission from the Superintendence of Public Health.

However, this is a moot point in itself because the only form of medical cannabis which has so far been licensed is the mouth-spray Sativex - which costs around €500 per 10ml and which no Matese pharmacy has so far agreed to import.

Sativex is currently the only licensed form of medical marijuana 

“We want to update the protocols on medical marijuana so as to allow GPs to prescribe it, to allow more medical marijuana products to enter the Maltese market, and to allow people to manufacture the medicine in Malta,” Muscat said. “The government wants to first make medical marijuana more accessible and then start discussing cannabis for personal use.”

Looser restrictions on medical marijuana is one of the central planks of ReLeaf - a recently launched movement campaigning for the legalisation of marijuana for personal use.