I take the precious liberty of pinching this headline from my colleague, Matthew Vella, whose piece, written just over 10 years ago, has come of age better than your average Petrus.

It was 2011: the conservative lobby hailed fire and brimstone on the pro-divorce movement and, by extension, those who didn’t walk the Catholic line. The conservatives boasted formidable resources (on paper, more than in person) with strategists and spokespeople who were handpicked by Nationalist Castille and the Curia.

They gave birth to a scaremongering campaign like no other. Thus came crazy accusations about the introduction of abortion by stealth, statements about battered women who shouldn’t have the right to divorce their abusive husbands and, of course, the Virgin Mary’s tears, who had apparently informed then finance minister Tonio Fenech of her mild distress at the state of Malta’s morality.

This merry lobby was led by people who made their way well up the ladder either as financial services practitioners or lawyers, with the usual statutory push from the political regime. They were ill-placed to speak about the realities of domestic violence, or even IVF, yet, as Vella puts it, their lives were a reflection of their successful careers and they expected everyone in society to live by their yardstick.

Fenech may have made an unwelcome return from the wilderness after the Virgin Mary had no tears for the investors of some pension funds in Sweden; I make it a point to miss his column, seeing the array of conservative misinformation one finds in print, TV and online.

Indeed, mullahs seem to be spawning again. Only recently, President George Vella welcomed two (hapless) exponents of the pro-life lobby, one of whom, barely a day after the presidential encounter, posted a picture on social media showing Adolf Hitler making the Nazi salute with subtext reading “the airport is that way”.

Then there are the typical woman-hating pro-lifers, who may appear slightly more polished than the usual ultra right-wing apologists on account of their shirts, a sickening Yankee accent and the lucrative business of real estate, specifically, that of training estate agents to further inflate property prices. Oh, these are the people who put “the value of life” before anything else.

It is also true that this lobby has no respect for the lives of those who are and think differently. The Curia and most authorities sat in silence in the face of online hate from pro-lifers, mostly directed towards women in activism. A statement like “they should be tied, made to face each other and shot in the head” simply elicited none of their trademark pro-life disdain.

Another kind of mullah seems to be moving stealthily, almost imperceptibly, in another debate which is slowly starting to mirror that on divorce.

I sat through an episode of L-Erbgħa fost il-Ġimgħa some time ago. The legal notice proposing the decriminalisation of cannabis was up for discussion and quite the spectacle it turned out to be.

Andrew Azzopardi may have valid if pressing reasons to ask, repeat and loudly reiterate the need for local studies about the effects of cannabis on society. That said, I was appalled at his behaviour during the programme, especially at his repeated and unacademic attempts to belittle Desiree Attard, who participated in the drafting of the reform.

His demeanour, however, paled into insignificance compared to the scaremongering carried out by Caritas’s Anthony Gatt. I have deep respect for Caritas’s work in society but Gatt’s performance disappointed me on so many levels. In particular, he seemed very keen on attacking a key provision of the legal notice: that which allows users to grow up to four plants in their own home, therefore, reducing their need for dealers.

Gatt claimed Caritas does not want to see more drug users in jail and, seeing what’s in the news, sparing drug users from Alex Dalli’s fortress would indeed be a pro-life measure.

However, I wonder why he displayed an oversized (and probably infertile) cannabis plant on TV and called it “research”. This piece of scaremongering sounded a lot like the divorce’s lobby claims about “marriages lasting until a woman is a size 10”.

Even here, the conservative mass argued for research while spreading more misconceptions about the topic, without stopping to look at its gigantic self-raising contradiction. In the meantime, the longer the law takes to be implemented, the more users end up behind bars.

In the meantime, positive reactions to the legal notice gave way to predictions of horror scenarios coming from various associations, none of whom seem to have an insight into the world of the cannabis consumer.

Then came Labour’s sudden pounce: the party declared itself in favour of legalising cannabis, a step further to its government’s decriminalisation proposal. Which is unusual, only until it strikes you that the government, as with construction or financial services, holds the key for a few keen “investors” to enter the market.

Beware of Labour bearing gifts: is this sudden change in direction the way in for business to gain a monopoly on cannabis in Malta, by also banning cultivation from homes to appease the salivating anti-cannabis lobby?

There’s a waft in the air around the debate and it’s that of snobbery. Many think cannabis is an evil zombifying drug. In some cases, it’s a necessary evil. In some cases, it can be decriminalised but, then, if bags of money are waved, completely legal.

Indeed, it would be a pity if the cannabis reform’s best aspect – that of allowing users to grow their own herb in privacy – were to be sidelined to appease the familiar mix of commercial and conservative interests.

Here’s to hoping Owen Bonnici doesn’t give in to these new mullahs.