Two months on since a historic convention opened up the doors for legal cannabis associations to form on the island, some potential investors are already getting cold feet.

Two potential business owners keen on entering the cannabis industry spoke to Lovin Malta on condition of anonymity to raise their concerns over what’s being asked of them prior to setting up shop.

The due diligence, in this case, is “unreasonable” and may lead to few people applying to open a business, they say. Read what you need to open a cannabis association in Malta by following this link.

Speaking to Lovin Malta, the potential investors, who are Maltese, pointed at the costs and levels of certain services involved in the industry as being too much.

“We’ve been asked to test our cannabis at a level ten times stronger than medical cannabis is tested… if an NPO (non-profit organisation) has eight strains, and it costs an addition €2,500 to do the test, we are looking at thousands upon thousands each and every month just to test the quality.”

“We should at the very least be equal to medical, if not less strict – but surely not stricter than medical. The cost of testing will increase the cost of the flower when we are meant to be combatting the black market, which doesn’t have these costs.”

“And when it comes to transporting the cannabis – we have been asked to provide transport at ATR standards, which is a standard used for fuel, gas and fireworks. When we asked Transport Malta officials for guidance on this, they weren’t even aware, and it seems no one offers transport of this level locally.”

They went on to mention other services, such as waste management, and not being able to fulfil the criteria reasonably.

And when it comes to the money being used to start the associations up, they said the due diligence on the source of wealth is too much.

“If the source of wealth is inheritance, for example, we’ve even been asked to provide a will or testament…”

The limit of 500g of dried cannabis flower per location is also worrying for them.

“If I have 500 members, and they all buy the limit of 7g each… it’s over for me that day.”

While agreeing that there needs to be a high level of due diligence in place, they questioned how effective this legal system may be when it will now be even more attractive to sell cannabis on the black market.

“It’s madness. How can you say this is a non-commercialisation model, but then you treat these NPOs like criminals?”

“This needs to be legitimate. We understand the government will be facing harm reduction issues, and its a quite new model in Europe, but the criteria needs to be reasonable. NPOs are crying for help and we aren’t finding help from anybody.”