Fallout of the Drug Trade
Editorial
Kaieteur News
April 14, 2007

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Nowadays it is widely recognised and accepted that Guyana is a major transshipment point for drugs from South America to the developed north. Recently, the President had cause to berate the US for blaming the local authorities for not doing more to stem the tide, while refusing to acknowledge their own complicity in providing the demand for the drugs.

It is a “demand-pull” phenomenon. The effort on the “drug” problem, as a whole, is externally focused – stopping the drugs from reaching foreign shores.

But while the leaders at the top sort out where blame is to be laid, the local society continues to be ravaged by drugs. Last year we pointed out what was happening in our villages. We have not seen much visible effort in countering the problem internally. While there had been some drug trade and usage in Georgetown since the eighties, in the last decade this phenomenon spread into every nook and cranny of the land.

There is obviously a direct correlation between the volume of drugs shipped through Guyana and that which remains for local consumption. In every village there is now one or more drug dealer – with operations of varying magnitude. The habit of the multitude of small drug users cannot be sustained by their meagre incomes and they inevitably resort to crime to provide cash to pay their suppliers.

“Breaking and entering” has now reached epidemic proportions across the land. While most of them would be classified as “petty” based on the value of the items stolen by the addicts, the cumulative amount has to be staggering. There has sprung up a most thriving trade in ‘fencing” – that is, in individuals purchasing the stolen items for a pittance then selling them at a huge mark-up later, to (mostly) unsuspecting customers. Our society continues to become criminalized.

The violation of the privacy of the homeowners, however, is the gravest fallout from the widespread drug usage. Women, especially, suffer many sleepless and stressful nights after the fact has sunken in that strangers were traipsing around their homes while they and their loved ones were asleep. This has to take a tremendous toll on our national well-being.

The police have to become more pro-active in dealing with this new menace. Special anti-drug units have to be formed within each police station. The drug dealers and users are generally known to villagers and the police must build a database on these individuals for sustained surveillance and apprehension. The “fencing” operations must be pulled down.

Then there is the destruction of the lives of the drug-users themselves. A very telling advertisement in the US on the dangers of drug usage was of an egg frying on a brain; that is what drugs do to the brain. We have quite a collection of fried brains roaming around Guyana today. It is not just the lives of the drug users that are unfortunately ruined – they make the lives of those nearest to them into living hell. If their petty pilfering from villagers and neighbours is an epidemic, then their close ones suffer a veritable plague.

One of the greatest lacunas in our social services has been the absence of programmes for addicts. Even before the advent of drugs, alcoholism had ravaged our society – especially in the rural areas – for decades, without any widespread programme for treating the disease.

The burgeoning drug usage has merely accentuated the need for detoxification and rehabilitation. We cannot depend on volunteer organisations; the Government must take a lead in this area. The latter has focused its programme in Georgetown and this must be widened immediately.

The programmes must also be deepened and coordinated between the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Social Services. The country-wide, multifaceted program on AIDS can serve as a blueprint as to the type of intervention that is necessary to address this new scourge.