Raphael Vassallo
Mario Mifsud, a forensic pharmacologist at the National Laboratory, has stated the case for an overhaul of Malta’s drug laws in order to remove ambiguities regarding the status of certain “new” drugs.
In recent weeks this newspaper has highlighted the case of Aweys Maani Khayre: one of three people, all from Somalia, currently held in custody at the Corradino Correctional Facilities (CCF) over importation of a plant called khat.
The plant itself is not illegal, but contains the scheduled substance, cathinone: a stimulant similar to amphetamine, which degenerates into the less potent cathine once extracted.
Khat plants are traditionally chewed in places such as the Horn of Africa and the Arabian peninsula, where the practice also has ritual significance.
Aweys and others in his situation face a possible 25-year prison sentence, over importation of a substance that can be bought legally at several London supermarkets, and which is also present in isomer form in legal medicines.
As a court-appointed expert witness, Mifsud is wary of going into the specifics of the above-mentioned cases. But Malta’s leading pharmacologist argues that a legal overhaul is necessary to remove inconsistencies.
“The problem is not so much in the intention of the law, but in the way the laws are worded,” he says. “They need to be clearer with regard to what is actually illegal and what isn’t.”
Mifsud explains that Malta’s position on the issue is not unique. With a sharp rise in immigrants from Somalia in the past decade, khat is a relatively new drug all over Europe and elsewhere, and as such is not fully catered for by the various member states’ legislations.
Countries such as Germany, the United States, Canada and Sweden have all taken the initiative to schedule the plant, as opposed to only its psychoactive chemical agents.
However, other countries – including Malta – felt that this was not necessary, as its dangerous ingredients are already illegal.
“Many countries operate on this principle: they argue that once the active chemical agent is scheduled, then the importation of the plant containing it is enough to warrant a prosecution for drug trafficking,” Mifsud explains.
But the situation is markedly different for other drugs. Referring to marijuana, Mifsud argues that the law is extremely specific with regard to which parts of the plant are legal and which are not.
The psychoactive agent in marijuana is THC, which is derived mainly from the buds and leaves. But various other parts of the plant – including the stalk, which has traditionally been used in the textiles industry – are completely free of harmful chemicals, and can legally be imported.
For this reason the Dangerous Drugs Ordinance specifies the precise parts of the Cannabis-sativa plant which are illegal.
“It would make more sense for the khat plant to be scheduled in a similar way,” Mifsud claims.
There is also a practical flaw in the current legal status of khat, which can easily be overcome if the law were made more specific.
“In Malta, ignorance of the law is not considered a legitimate defence,” Mifsud says. “I will not go into the merits of this argument, but the situation as it stands today can lead to people breaking the law without realising.”
Using the example of khat – although there are others – Mifsud presents a hypothetical scenario in which a person might consult the laws of Malta to find out if a substance is legal or not before importing it to the country.
“The way the law is enacted presupposes a certain scientific knowledge,” he points out. “The common man in the street is highly unlikely to know that cathine and cathinone (the banned chemicals) are present in khat. He would just look for the name of the plant in the country’s register of illegal drugs, and if he doesn’t find it, he will probably assume that khat is legal.”
Mifsud’s argument appears to be relevant to another dubious drug-related prosecution: that of British national Steven Marsden, currently charged with drug trafficking over 50,000 pills of mCCP – a substance which was not illegal at the time he imported it in 2006.
Also known as “herbal ecstasy”, mCCP is a cheap alternative to the well-known party drug, and remains unregistered in many European countries.
But in Marsden’s case the pills were mistaken for ecstasy, and the police described this prodigious haul as the “largest ever” of its kind.
When the mistake came to be known, the “new” chemical was promptly scheduled, and the charges against Marsden were retained on the basis that he had imported the drugs under the impression that they were, in fact, ecstasy tablets.
Marden has consistently and vehemently denied this charge, arguing that – not unlike Mifsud’s hypothetical khat importer – he had checked beforehand to see if mCCP was scheduled in Malta before importing the substance.
Marsden claims to have been unlawfully arrested and detained, and his case has since been taken up by Fair Trials International and given prominence on the BBC.

rvassallo@mediatoday.com.mt

Khat case
www.maltatoday.com.mt/2008/10/05/t11.html

Steven Marsden case
www.maltatoday.com.mt/2008/09/28/t3.html

PRINT THIS ARTICLE