Labour heavyweight slams Malta’s zero-tolerance drug-driving law for ‘criminalising first-time users’

**Drug-driving law gives judiciary too little leeway, Edward Zammit Lewis warns**

Former Justice Minister Edward Zammit Lewis has sounded the alarm over Malta’s zero-tolerance drug-driving laws, arguing that rigid mandatory sentencing strips judges of discretion and risks turning the courts into “assembly lines of punishment.” In a rare critique from within the Labour fold, the ex-minister told *Times of Malta* that the 2022 amendments to the Road Traffic Act – which impose an automatic 12-month ban for anyone caught with the slightest trace of cannabis, cocaine or other narcotics in their blood – may be “politically popular but judicially reckless.”

The comments reopen a debate that has simmered since the law was rushed through parliament after a spate of summer fatalities involving drivers who tested positive for drugs. Families of victims campaigned under the banner “Not One More,” collecting 17,000 signatures in ten days and forcing a snap conscience vote that united both major parties. Yet fourteen months on, Zammit Lewis says the emotional response has ossified into bad policy. “We legislated in grief, not in reason,” he told *Hot Malta*. “Now we’re criminalising first-time users, medical-cannabis patients and weekend ravers with the same broad brush we use for serial offenders.”

Court statistics appear to back him. Magistrates have handed down 487 driving bans for drug traces since January 2023; only 12 cases were adjourned for “exceptional circumstances” and just three acquitted. Compare that to drink-driving, where judges can still weigh blood-alcohol level, driver behaviour and prior record: 42% of drunk-driving charges ended in suspended or reduced sentences last year. The discrepancy is fuelling accusations that Parliament picked an easy target – cannabis consumers – while leaving the harder battle against alcohol untouched. After all, wine is communion, festa and Friday happy-hour; cannabis remains “the outsider’s vice,” as one Gozitan youth-worker put it.

Local culture clashes with the statute in everyday ways. Take the 19-year-old Mellieħa courier who lost his licence after a saliva swab detected THC he admits smoking 36 hours earlier. Without a car he can no longer reach the Ċirkewwa ferry for his 5 a.m. shift; his employer, a diving school, has already replaced him. Or the 62-year-old Sliema cancer patient who uses legal CBD oil for neuropathy; she now risks disqualification every time she drives to Mater Dei for chemotherapy. Their stories circulate on TikTok and island Facebook groups, spawning the hashtag #DriveJusticeMT and a protest picnic planned for Valletta’s Upper Barrakka gardens this Saturday.

Zammit Lewis insists he is not advocating laxity. “I’m asking for judicial leeway, not a free pass,” he emphasised, proposing a three-tier system: warning and education for first-time negligible traces, suspended bans for moderate repeat cases, and mandatory disqualification only where impairment is proven or aggravated circumstances exist. His model mirrors 2021 reforms in Jersey, whose Chief Minister recently told a Maltese delegation that road-safety outcomes improved after courts regained discretion. But Transport Malta and the Road Safety Council remain unmoved. “Any detectable drug is a potential killer,” Council chair Marita Degaetano replied. “We refuse to wait for a body count before acting.”

The stand-off leaves magistrates frustrated. One serving judge, speaking anonymously, described “absurd mornings” convicting a 54-year-old accountant who tested positive for cocaine metabolites after consuming at a bachelor party three days earlier. “My hands are tied. The law says I must ban him; I can’t even order rehab.” One option being floated is a constitutional challenge: lawyers argue that mandatory minimums breach the European Convention principle of individualised sentencing. A test case is already being prepared by a Valletta criminal-law firm, pro-bono, for a 24-year-old apprentice caught with 0.0003 g/l of THC – barely the equipment’s margin of error.

Meanwhile, the social ripple grows. Insurance premiums for under-30s have jumped 18% in a year, insurers citing “heightened narcotic risk.” Driving schools report a 25% spike in refresher lessons from disqualified licence-holders desperate to shorten bans. And in tight-knit villages where the car is still “the key to adulthood,” young men mumble about leaving Malta altogether. “First they came for our spliff, now they take our steering wheel,” a Zejtun graffiti tag reads. Hyperbolic, perhaps, but indicative of a widening trust deficit between the state and a generation that feels disproportionately policed.

Zammit Lewis, for his part, believes the tide can still turn. “We Maltese pride ourselves on common sense,” he concluded. “Let’s restore it before more lives – and livelihoods – are derailed by a law that forgets people are human, not statistics.” Whether Parliament listens will depend on whether #DriveJusticeMT can match the emotional momentum of “Not One More.” In the court of public opinion, the next hearing is already under way.