After Cabinet agreed on new legislation to improve access to medicinal cannabis, Prime Minister Joseph Muscat expressed hope that Malta could one day become a production centre for medicinal cannabis.
“Cabinet has approved legal amendments to help people suffering from illnesses such as cancer – who have so far had to jump through hoops to get their hands on this medication made from marijuana extracts,” he said during a political activity in Santa Venera.
Dr Muscat said patients would no longer need a specialist’s approval and could go through their general practitioner. A number of factors, including the fact that similar changes had been made to legislation in Germany, indicated that the European market was quickly growing.
Dr Muscat was also keen to clarify that the changes would only concern medical cannabis, and that the debate on recreational cannabis was to be tackled separately.
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.
