CHALLENGES IN 'CARIBBEAN DRUGS'

FACED with the dangerous link between illicit drug consumption and the
HIV/Aids pandemic, Caribbean Community governments are now challenged to
also intensify efforts to deal with overcrowded prisons where significant
percentages of inmates are young people and women convicted for using or
running marijuana and cocaine.

How to help reduce the tremendous harm from illicit drugs to family life
and the social and economic consequences to society, with a shift from
traditional punitive penal custody that is an increasing burden to State
resources, requires a fresh look at alternative policies and programmes,
according to penal reform and human rights specialists and professionals of
regional and international institutions and agencies.

To add to the literature, relevant policy documents and proposals that may
already be available from their own specialists and policy advisers, is a
just-released book which the Community's governments should find as a very
useful tool in the fight against the costly social and economic
consequences of illicit drugs.

Caribbean Drugs, authored by Axel Klein, Marcus Day and Anthony Harriott,
with a stimulating collection of essays by regional and international
experts, provides refreshing insights on moving the enormous problem of
drug abuse from "criminalisation" to the challenge of "harm reduction".

It is the general understanding of Caribbean people that the crimes of
narco-trafficking and gun-running have significantly contributed to the
curse of armed killings, violence and fear that afflict so many nations of
our region, including Trinidad and Tobago.

There is also increasing awareness, resulting from the frustrating
complaints of criminologists, sociologists and prison authorities, of
overcrowded prisons in societies where the focus remains too heavily on
"jail them", instead of enlightened alternatives to custodial sentencing,
such as community services, rehabilitation and education.

In such a situation, young and first offenders serving drug-related
sentences, often become more prone to criminality in overcrowded prisons
with atrocious facilities and hardened criminals, as others in society
engage in passionate debates on social issues such as introduction of
condoms in prisons.

While some of the major Caricom states talk about plans for new prison
facilities and pursuit of alternatives to custodial sentencing, the
governments of the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) are
vigorously working on common policies and strategies to deal with penal
reform and new approaches to addressing illicit drugs-related problems.

They are expected to have a new assessment of this policy when they meet
tomorrow in plenary session for their 40th summit that opened today in Tortola.

Caribbean Drugs, which includes among Caribbean contributors specialists
also from United Nations agencies, international human rights and research
organisations and universities, has been offered by its authors as a
product that throws "fascinating light" on the difficulties facing drug
abuse and rehabilitation centres and the dilemmas they throw up.

Denis Benn, Michael Manley Professor of Public Affairs/Public Policy of the
University of the West Indies, Mona, tells us in a preface, that the
editors and contributors deserve to be commended for shedding light on the
challenge from "criminalisation to harm reduction".

This, he said, has emerged as a "major public policy concern in the
Caribbean that will continue to demand the urgent attention of governments
and regional institutions and international agencies..."

For the executive director of Drug Policy Alliance, Ethan Madlemann, only
rarely do edited volumes, with multiple essays by scholars, exercise any
influence on public policy. But, as he said, if he had to choose one book
that might achieve such an objective, it would be Caribbean Drugs-From
Criminalization to Harm Reduction.

In his analysis, Axel Klein, one of the three authors and Head of Research
at DrugScope-which is regarded as the United Kingdom's leading independent
centre of expertise on drugs-has traced the search by the Caribbean for a
new drug policy framework from the "Barbados Plan of Action" to the "Ganja
Commission of Jamaica", and emphasised:

"The need for action is urgent and professionals are looking for strategic
direction. We propose the adoption by the Commonwealth Caribbean of a
policy of harm reduction within the room for manoeuvre allowed by the
United Nations Convention on drugs regulation and outlined by the 'Ganja
Commission (of Jamaica)'..."

Klein's companion editors, Marcus Day, coordinator of the St Lucia-based
Caribbean Harm Reduction Coalition, and Anthony Harriot, senior lecturer in
government at the UWI (Mona), have been joined with a team of professionals
and researchers with hands-on experience of the Caribbean reality in
dealing with the complexity of problems associated with narco-trafficking,
illicit drug consumption, overcrowded prisons and the dilemmas in
responding to the challenge for change.

Barry Chevannes, dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences of the UWI, shares
his insights into the ganja culture and criminalisation in Jamaica; Wendy
Singh, human rights consultant and former Caribbean director of Penal
Reform International, offers an overview of "drugs and the prison system",
with a focus on impact of legislative changes.

Other contributions that would also be of much interest to policy advisers
and lawmakers, as well as members of the public with a general interest,
would include: Howard Gough's "drug abuse treatment and rehabilitation in
Jamaica and the Caribbean"; Jennifer Hillebrand's "ethical dilemmas in
drugs research"; Philip Nanton's "rethinking privatisation-the state and
drugs in the Commonwealth Caribbean"; and Catherine Chestnut's focus on
"practising harm reduction in a zero-tolerance society".

In the view of the director of Drug and Alcohol Studies at the University
of Delaware, James Inciardi, the authors and contributors of Caribbean
Drugs have succeeded in filling "a major gap in providing substance abuse
researchers, clinicians, policy makers and general readers, on both sides
of the Atlantic, with a collection of interesting and highly provocative
essays..."

Caribbean Drugs was published by Ian Randle Publishers (Kingston, Jamaica);
and Zed Books (London and New York) in association with DrugScope, UK.