People and dancefloors podcast Season 2 episode 4 Cannabis special! In conversation with Andrew Bonello and Derrick Bergman

Andrew Bonello is the president of Releaf Malta, a community-based NGO that campaigns for the regulation of cannabis in Malta through safe, sensible and inclusive policies. Andrew is a former national football player, and the father of two children. He wants to end stigma and injustices against people who consume and cultivate cannabis.

Derrick Bergman is a Dutch journalist, photographer, and activist who has been covering cannabis culture since 1994. He is a founder and the current chairman of the VOC (Union for the abolition of cannabis prohibition). Since 2010, he’s served as the coordinator of Cannabis Liberation Day, the biggest cannabis and hemp event in the Netherlands. He is a father of three and has been growing his own cannabis for more than two decades.

There seems to be a green rush across Europe. In the podcast, we address perspectives from Malta as the new kid on the bloc and the Netherlands as the pioneer, thinking about what the Netherlands got wrong that Malta can get right, learning from the experiences of other countries. We all agree we certainly want to avoid the backdoor problem, which is notoriously linked with expanding opportunities for organised crime.

We also talk about whether cannabis reform can shape social perceptions of people who use drugs, once again thinking about the Dutch experience. We discuss what justice and social equity mean in the context of cannabis reform, and how the Maltese model addresses these issues.

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