AD urges MPs to decriminalise drugs for personal use

Alternattiva Demokratika thanked Malta's ambassador for culture Joseph Calleja for showing his solidarity with Daniel Holmes and compassion towards his ordeal.

AD Chairperson Arnold Cassola said, "Joseph Muscat and Simon Busuttil should wake up to the real problems facing Maltese society. When are they going to listen to Alternattiva Demokratika and those people like Judge Giovanni Bonello and Joseph Calleja, who are endorsing AD's proposal for changes in the drug laws to ensure that drugs for personal use are decriminalised?"

Daniel Holmes a 35-year-old Welsh national is currently serving an 11-year sentence for cannabis possession.

AD spokesperson on social policy Robert Callus said, "I've been following Mr Holmes' case very closely as well as met members of his family and still can't believe my country has committed such an inhumanity towards these people."

Callus insisted that Holmes never sold cannabis yet got a sentence the equivalent of trafficking of hard drugs simply because "the law is wrong beyond belief. He was found guilty of trafficking with his friend Barry Lee who was in turn charged of trafficking with Holmes - because they co-owned the same plants. Barry Lee has since taken his own life upon realizing what sentence he was facing for what in real terms could be considered little more than mischief."

"I have witnessed personally the devastation not only on Daniel but also his parents, wife and daughter while our country is being portrayed as a third world country on international media for it. On a positive note, the outrage our society is showing towards Holmes' case as well as the numerous lives that are ruined because of our archaic laws on drug possession shows that most of us are moving towards what is proven by research and is humane and away from the dogmatic mentality of punishing people for their own good. Now it's time for the politicians to update our laws."

Daniel Holmes was arrested for possession of two cannabis plants in his Gozo apartment in 2006. He would spend five years awaiting trial, and on 24 November 2011, Magistrate Lawrence Quintano convicted the 35-year-old Briton on a number of charges, including: importation of cannabis seeds without a license; cultivation of cannabis without a license and under circumstances which suggested that it was not for his personal use; and trafficking of over 1 kg of cannabis, which the court estimated was worth just over €13,800.

Holmes, who claimed a lifelong cannabis addiction, rebutted charges of cultivation for the purposes of trafficking, pleading guilty only to simple possession. He was sentenced to 11 years imprisonment and a fine of over €23,000: sparking outrage on a number of counts, not least the perceived inconsistency whereby more severe sentences are meted out for relatively trivial offences, while much more serious crimes - including domestic violence, grievous bodily harm arising from criminal negligence, and even aggravated theft - are let off lightly, sometimes with a suspended sentence.