During a news conference, the Minister for Social Policy and Children’s Rights Michael Falzon presented the annual report on the drug situation in our country during the year 2021.
It was explained that several points emerge from this report including that fewer people were brought to Court in connection with drug possession and trafficking during the year in question and this can be attributed to a number of restrictions linked to the pandemic that we had in this period and also for the fact that people who were caught with possession in small amounts were no longer brought to Court after the reform of the drug law of the year 2015.
Minister Falzon also explained that in the same period of time those people who are choosing to seek help in a clinic or with an agency continued to increase. Among those who are looking for assistance, there are mostly those who are addicted to cocaine, hashish and heroin.
Every year, cocaine continues to be the most addictive drug, and this can be attributed to an increase in the purity of this drug. From the report it also emerged that the use of synthetic drugs is mostly resulting in the emergency cases that our hospitals are seeing, while fewer people are receiving treatment for heroin. He also mentioned that the pilot project is underway to give the medicine buprenorphine, which turns out to have more positive effects than methadone.
The minister concluded by saying that prevention services continued to be strengthened, and the report also noted the awareness campaigns among teenagers, young people and even the strong investment on social media.
