Daniel Holmes petition attracts international support

A petition calling for the release of British national Daniel Holmes, currently serving an 11-year prison sentence in Malta for possession of cannabis for personal use, has attracted over 5,000 signatures from almost literally all over the world.

By far the bulk of the signatories - over 2,919 - are Maltese, with the second largest number (1,044) registered in Holmes's native United Kingdom.

But a breakdown of the signatures yields surprising results: the petition appears to have attracted interest also in the USA, Canada, Australia, almost all European countries and even some rather unlikely places such as Costa Rica, Panama, Kazakhstan, Mali, Afghanistan, Nepal, Palestine and others... even if the number of signatories in such countries is minimal.

At a glance the findings appear to chime in with growing international recognition that draconian prison sentences for possession of soft drugs represent an injustice, in the light of recent scientific studies which indicate that cannabis is not the harmful drug it is so often made out to be... as well as a growing international consensus that the 'war on drugs' has been an abject failure.

In 2011, a report by the Global Commission on Drug Policy - spearheaded by Nelson Mandela, Richard Branson and Javier Solana, among others - that reached the following conclusions:

• '[There is a] mistaken assumption that drug seizures, arrests, criminal convictions and other commonly reported indices of drug law enforcement 'success' have been effective overall in reducing illegal drug availability... however, data from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime demonstrate that the worldwide supply of illicit opiates, such as heroin, has increased by more than 380% in recent decades...'
• 'Throughout the world, research has consistently shown that repressive drug law enforcement practices force drug users away from public health services and into hidden environments where HIV risk becomes markedly elevated.'
• 'As was the case with the US prohibition of alcohol in the 1920s, the global prohibition of drugs now fuels drug market violence around the world.'
• 'Any sober assessment of the impacts of the war on drugs would conclude that many national and international organisations tasked with reducing the drug problem have actually contributed to a worsening of community health and safety. This must change.'

Daniel Alexander Holmes was arrested for possession of two cannabis plants in his Gozo apartment in 2006. He would spend five years awaiting trial, and on 24 November 2011, Magistrate Lawrence Quintano convicted the 35-year-old Briton on a number of charges, including: importation of cannabis seeds without a license; cultivation of cannabis without a license and under circumstances which suggested that it was not for his personal use; and trafficking of over 1 kg of cannabis, which the court estimated was worth just over €13,800.

Holmes, who claimed a lifelong cannabis addiction, rebutted charges of cultivation for the purposes of trafficking, pleading guilty only to simple possession. He was sentenced to 11 years imprisonment and a fine of over €23,000: sparking outrage on a number of counts, not least the perceived inconsistency whereby more severe sentences are meted out for relatively trivial offences, while much more serious crimes - including domestic violence, grievous bodily harm arising from criminal negligence, and even aggravated theft - are let off lightly, sometimes with a suspended sentence.

Other anomalies have also been identified in the case: for instance, it transpires that the wreight of '1kg' refers to the total weight of the two plants themselves, including the soil in which they are planted... and not the quantity of chemically active agents that would actually have been consumed.

Holmes is now awaiting a final appeal decision, which is expected on 4 July.