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Engerer, who presented an intro and outro speech during the conference, said regulating cannabis could act as a “vital blow to the black markets” operating in Malta and the Mediterranean.

“It’s time to stop the financing of organised crime through cannabis prohibition policies that send people to the black market to buy inferior unregulated products,” he said.

“Prohibition policies move cannabis trade into the black market and creates substantial financial backing to organised crime within the Mediterranean. Removing this income by regulating cannabis will hit traffickers where it hurts – in their pockets,” he continued.

There were two panels of high-level experts including MPs, MEPs, drug policy experts, academics, harm reduction experts, toxicologists and psychiatrists from across the EU Member States.

Engerer made it clear that if authorities wanted to combat the current black market of crime webbed across the Mediterranean, they needed to regulate the cannabis markets in order to remove control of production away from traffickers and into a regulated and secure setting.

According to two of the speakers, Economists and Professors Marco Rossi from the University of Sapienza and Professor Justus Haucap from the University of Dusseldorf both estimated that billions of money is obtained by organised crime rings every year because of the lack of regulation surrounding cannabis policy. 

Such a policy, argued Engerer, will clear the way for Malta to rid itself from the shackles many countries find themselves restrained to when it comes to organised crime in the Mediterranean because of their own non-regulation of the cannabis market.

“We need to shift away from the ‘war on drugs’ fallacies that benefits no one except the traffickers.”

The panellists dove into a range of topics, with some of the highlights being a breakdown of different Cannabis Social Clubs (CSs) around the world as well as a chemical comparison explaining the differences in testing drink driving and smoke driving.

Mafalda Pardal, Assistant Professor at the Institute for Social Drug Research noted that so often, the debate in countries is between a duopoly of “legalisation vs prohibition” when in reality there were so many more choices. 

And though there are a number of CSC models, including in places like Spain and Uruguay, the differences in operations between them showed there was not yet an international consensus on the best way forward.

Toxicologist Dr Fabian Pitter Steinmetz chemically broke down why authorities will find difficulties attempting to test cannabis intoxication in drivers if they plan on using a system similar to alcohol testing.

He noted that though drunk drivers may feel like they are more confident in their abilities when inebriated, the opposite is true for high drivers, who typically drive slower when under the influence.

However, he noted that more research needed to be done before a proper system to test cannabis intoxication levels in drivers could be properly implemented.

This was the first conference of its type to be hosted by a Maltese MEP.

As the country discusses a highly-anticipated cannabis reform paper, we can expect more open discussions on the topic over the coming weeks and months.

This article is part of a content series called Ewropej. This is a multi-newsroom initiative part-funded by the European Parliament to bring the work of the EP closer to the citizens of Malta and keep them informed about matters that affect their daily lives. This article reflects only the author’s view. The European Parliament is not responsible for any use that may be made of the information it contains.

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