ILLEGAL DRUGS A GROWING CHALLENGE

A Recent Report from the United Nations International Narcotics
Control Board would have met with mixed reaction in the Caribbean and
Central America. The report said that there had been an increase in
national criminal gangs involved in drug trafficking in these two
areas, and that the rule of law was being undermined as well.

There are daily reports of people being caught with drugs in the
region and this immediately signals that this is an ongoing
challenge. At the same time, however, where we are hearing that the
rule of law is being undermined there must be grave concern since our
ability to track down the drug traffickers depends on the efficiency
of our law enforcement. It follows that if the rule of law is being
undermined drug trafficking will have an opportunity to further spiral.

Even without focusing on any such breakdown, we are seeing the
traffickers resorting to the use of innovative techniques to avoid
being caught, whether it is drug mules ingesting the drugs for
excretion later or resorting to "secret" hiding places in luggage or
whatever.

This apart, when local gangs begin fighting for territory this poses
an additional challenge for forces of law and order, for it
inevitably includes the use of guns and sometimes murder.

What, however, gives some hope in the UN report is that so far not
all the territories in the region under scrutiny are as steeped, so
far, as their neighbours in the use of drugs or in drug
trafficking.

According to the UN report, the levels range from one per cent in
Antigua and Barbuda to 13 per cent in Aruba. However, where the use
of marijuana is concerned, the Caribbean alone has a higher rate,
ranging from 1.9 per cent in the Dominican Republic to 7.3 per cent
in Barbados, among countries other than Jamaica.

Jamaica was classified as the main producer and exporter of marijuana
in the region and has the highest rate of use, with ten per cent of
its population, between 15 and 64 years, said to be using the drug.

Statistics were not given in the Press report on the UN findings for
St Vincent and the Grenadines where it is known that much of the
marijuana eventually reaching Barbados is cultivated. At the same
time the Barbadian law enforcement authorities have been coming
across an increased number of our citizens who have been cultivating
marijuana plants.

Last week more than 3 269 marijuana plants, seized by the police
between last October and February this year, were burnt in Barbados.
Other illegal drugs destroyed included 657 kilos of processed
marijuana, and 115.3 kilos of cocaine.

These are appreciable gains in the fight against the movement of
illegal drugs through the area but the local cultivation of the
"herb" shows that there are those within who are bent on keeping the
illegal drug trade going, however stymied it might be where supplies
are from overseas, through the crackdown by local law enforcement
authorities.