Malta Limits Historic Marijuana Legalization Law, Sending Threat Letters To Consumers Over ‘Nuisance’ Odors

*“We’re back to punishing plants and people instead of fixing the real
problems, which are housing density, social stigma and lack of safe
venues.”*

*By Felipe Neis Araujo, Filter*

In late 2021, Malta became the first European country to legalize marijuana
possession for adult use. Anyone over 18 could keep up to seven grams on
their person and up to 50 grams at home, plus grow up to four plants. The
act also established a regulatory framework that included cultivation and
distribution by licensed nonprofits known as Cannabis Harm Reduction
Associations (CHRAs).

Portugal and other countries had decriminalized personal possession, but it
was still a civil violation. Malta’s reform was praised as a pragmatic,
public health‑oriented pivot that would siphon revenue away from
drug-trafficking groups and spare people the burden of a criminal-legal
record. Public consumption remained banned, but people could smoke cannabis
at home.

Four years later, the island nation’s governing Labour Party has changed
its tune.

In May, the Parliament of Malta unanimously approved Bill 128, which sets a
€235 fine for public consumption of non-medical cannabis—including “in any
place where the [odor] causes a nuisance to third parties.”

Previously this had only applied to public consumption, but it now includes
people smoking in the privacy of their home—if a neighbor complains about
the smell. A free hotline has been set up to receive complaints. In July,
warning letters began to arrive.

Wow! 🤬 Instead of fighting crime and corruption they make lists & send
warnings. This amendment is ILLEGAL & DANGEROUS—persecuting cannabis users!
✊ Leave us in peace & privacy at home! 👉 No privacy, no vote‼️
#reefermadness#Cannabisreform#Malta pic.twitter.com/O4mwUYBoR0

— Releaf Malta (@Releafmalta) July 10, 2025

“A lot of people were smoking on their balconies and annoying people who
lived above them,” Joey Reno Vella, the executive chairperson of the
Authority for the Responsible Use of Cannabis (ARUC), told the Times of
Malta earlier in 2025.

The law states that no “criminal proceedings…shall be taken except at the
request or with the authorization of the Authority on the Responsible Use
of Cannabis.” But it becomes a court matter if the fine goes unpaid—and
then what? As time goes on, how will ARUC handle people who are fined
repeatedly and cannot pay?

“We’re back to punishing plants and people instead of fixing the real
problems, which are housing density, social stigma and lack of safe
venues,” Maltese activist and former ARUC employee Karen Mamo told Filter
at an academic drug policy conference in June. CHRA have been forbidden
from operating on‑site lounges.

The policy U‑turn did not come out of nowhere. Policing remained part of
legalization from Day One, targeting young people who smoked outside.
Police officers pounced on those using cannabis on beaches or rooftops.
Conservative lobbyists and the Catholic Church spread a narrative about
Malta becoming the new Amsterdam.

In 2023, House of Representatives Deputy Speaker Claudette Pace told
members of Parliament that she’d met a visually impaired man whose guide
dog had gotten high from second-hand smoke. In 2024, the government
launched a high-profile Responsible Cannabis Use campaign. Warnings about
the fine for smoking in public or near minors appeared on billboards and
Instagram posts.

The message was clear: Cannabis is still a threat to children and public
order. These tired tropes ignore the fact that adults can drink alcohol and
smoke cigarettes while holding a a child in their lap, and apparently not
pose the same risk.

In the island’s densely populated apartment blocks, the issue of odor
complaints emerged as a way to effectively roll back the 2021 protections.

In 2011, Malta saw an historic cannabis criminalization protest led by
David Caruana, who was facing charges for growing cannabis plants on his
balcony; cultivation was considered to be drug trafficking, even in
personal-use quantities. Advocates highlighted the case of Daniel Holmes
and Barry Lee, who in 2006 had been arrested for growing five plants. Lee
died by suicide while awaiting trial; Holmes was serving a 10.5-year
sentence. He was released in 2018.

NGOs such as ReLeaf Malta rallied public support and pushed politicians to
imagine something better. This lobbying gained traction after 2015’s Drug
Dependence Act nominally decriminalized personal possession, but left
police free to detain users for 48 hours. Advocates fighting against
piecemeal reform finally prevailed in 2021.

The new amendments will fall hardest on tenants who cannot control communal
airflow and on working‑class youth who smoke cannabis outside because
landlords ban indoor use. Cultivating the four permitted plants anywhere
other than at home now comes with a fine of up to €1,000, yet the plants
cannot be visible outdoors. Such fines may not deter affluent growers with
detached homes and gardens, but may bankrupt someone renting a third‑floor
walk‑up in Birkirkara.

The new law could easily clog the courts, with every contested fine
becoming a quasi‑forensic dispute over whose nostrils caught what and when.
And, perhaps most galling, the new law imposes mandatory data-sharing on
CHRAs—they must hand over their membership lists to ARUC, sowing fear over
how that information will be used.

Malta once offered reformers across Europe a glimpse of what nationwide
legalization might look like outside the Americas. Yet Malta’s rapid
reversal shows how fragile reform can be and that legalization is a process,
not a finish line.

*This article was originally published by Filter, an online magazine
covering drug use, drug policy and human rights through a harm reduction
lens. Follow Filter on Bluesky, X or Facebook, and sign up for its
newsletter.*

*Photo courtesy of Chris Wallis // Side Pocket Images.*

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Letters To Consumers Over ‘Nuisance’ Odors appeared first on Marijuana
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