It seems the legalization of marijuana wave keeps on hitting every country in the world right now. Next up is Malta. The government of Malta has proposed to allow the doctors in the country to help with prescribing medical marijuana to the residents. This draft was published on Monday. It is expected that it would help loosen the existing regulations on medical weed. The many restrictions have made it so hard for the patients to access medical weed. Actually, not a single patient in the whole country has been treated with cannabis legally at least.
The Health Minister, Chris Fearne said that he is going to submit the amendment to the Malta 2015 Drug Dependence Act. It is not something new when it comes to the use of medical weed in the country. This is because in the last session of Malta Legislature, the government introduced the law that would allow the use of cannabis products for only medical purpose. The law which has been condemned by medical professionals allowed only specialists to prescribe cannabis to the patients. With not many specialists available, it has been hard for patients to access weed for medical use.
The introduction of the new law would allow for any general practitioner to start prescribing cannabis to the patients. This comes after two years of complaints from the patients and doctors alike. The law had too much bureaucracy making it hard for many patients to access the medication that they needed for various conditions.
Having too much bureaucracy is not always a good thing when dealing with drugs such as weed. This has been learnt the hard way in various states in the U.S. where the patients had trouble accessing medical weed. What this does is to push the users back to the black market. This thus defeats the purpose of legalizing weed in the first place.
It is good that the government of Malta is thinking in the line of easing some of the regulation. As much as they might have been long overdue, it is better that the process has started. There is no doubt that the Maltese government is taking the right steps to make sure there is effective use of medical marijuana in the country.
As much as that is the case, other activists feel that more could be done. They feel that some of the measures proposed could make the law counterproductive. If such unproductive measures are in the final amendment, then there will not be much progress. Such measures include the need to force the patients to have each of the prescription approved by the superintendent. This would simply increase the bureaucracy in the marijuana industry again.
The legalizing and use of medical marijuana in Malta might have been overdue, but there is a chance for the users to still enjoy it with the right laws. Many countries today allow the use of the marijuana flowers thanks to the swiftness and the speed of accessing the power of medical marijuana. It is the reason you find it being used to treat chronic pain in no time.
It can be disappointing for Malta residents as the current law only allows the use of cannabis extract products and not the marijuana flowers. If the patients are limited to using only the extracts, they would not get to experience the full potential of marijuana. The worst part is that these extracts will often be expensive. If the patients cannot access the marijuana flowers on the legal market, then they will go to the black market to get some for themselves.
