Labour MP Luciano Busuttil has called for softer penalties for cannabis users, saying people found cultivating the plant for their own use should not be imprisoned.

Someone caught growing a plant had to be sent to jail

“Legalise it? No. Depenalise it... only for personal users,” he wrote on his Facebook profile yesterday morning.

Asked to elaborate, he told The Times those caught with cannabis should not be sent to jail or given suspended sentences but should be given conditional discharges and helped to rehabilitate.

Even those caught for a second or third time should not be sent to jail, especially in light of recent revelations about the prevalent drug use in prison, he said.

Depenalisation is usually used as a synonym for decriminalisation but is sometimes defined as a different system altogether, where penalties are relaxed but possession remains a criminal offence.

Decriminalisation generally means drug users are treated like patients rather than criminals, whereas legalisation means the substances can be consumed relatively freely like tobacco and alcohol.

On cannabis cultivation, Dr Busuttil said it did not make sense for people to be given automatic jail sentences, as Maltese law stipulates.

“We had a case some time ago at my legal office where someone was caught growing a plant that weighed 0.1 grammes. It was clearly for personal use. But by law it counts as trafficking so he had to be sent to jail,” Dr Busuttil said.

“I believe these cases should count as personal use.”

The main two political parties have so far dismissed the idea of decriminalisation. But Dr Busuttil is the second MP, following Nationalist MP Franco Debono, to come out in support of some form of drug law reform, as the debate heats up in the country.

Dr Debono, who is also against decriminalisation and legalisation, says those caught cultivating cannabis should not continue to be automatically prosecuted as drug traffickers. He also called for the Attorney General to be given less power of discretion, which affects the minimum and maximum sentences in trafficking cases.

Meanwhile, an uncharacteristically large protest calling for cannabis law reform drew 300 demonstrators on Saturday. It was organised by David Caruana, who is himself facing jail time for cultivating the plant for personal use.

Asked if he thought there should also be a discussion on full decriminalisation or legalisation of cannabis, Dr Busuttil said: “Maybe before I became a parent I would have said yes, but now I’m too conservative on the matter.”

He stressed that he had never touched drugs and his biggest fear as a parent was for his children to get “caught in the net”.

“The drug remains a drug. Sure, alcohol has its effects too but cannabis has worse effects on a person than say, cigarettes... Then again, legalisation allows you to regulate quality and curb the business of drug dealers.

“I see both sides of the argument,” he said, “but my parental instinct kicks in, sometimes making it difficult for me to be objective.”