Joey Reno Vella: ‘Malta’s harm-reduction approach to cannabis is working’

Almost three years after Malta became the first European country to regularise the sale and possession of cannabis, regulatory chief Joey Reno Vella feels the reform is working. 

“The country’s harm reduction approach is working,” Vella tells me. He chairs the Authority for the Responsible Use of Cannabis set up when cannabis was regularised. 

He says that while “the safest way to consume cannabis is not to consume it at all”, policy makers cannot ignore today’s realities.  

“Before 2021, before the reform was enacted, you had a reality where studies showed a large section of the population used cannabis, but they had no regulated market from where they could buy it. The cannabis they bought was not cultivated in a safe manner, and so posed more risks. They had to turn to the black market where they did not know what they were buying,” he says.