Dear Editor,
I refer to the caption in the Stabroek News dated January 22, ‘Security expert urges selective legalizing of ganja as part of drug response.’ I take a very firm stance on the legalization of marijuana/ cannabis. From working in a high secure mental health unit in south London in 1993, I learnt from experience that when drug addicts are deprived of their ‘fix’ the risk of serious harm to staff and to members of the public increases.
There is increased pressure from big drug companies in Europe and the USA who see a lucrative marijuana/cannabis market in the Caribbean to legalize certain drugs. This is part of a global campaign in which certain drug companies and venture capitalists have a vested interest, since they stand to make billions of dollars from the sale of marijuana/cannabis, ecstasy and other drugs if they were to be legalized. The big drug companies obviously don`t care that marijuana/cannabis use often culminates in poly-substance misuse and abuse. Many of today`s cocaine and ecstasy abusers were initially marijuana/ cannabis users. Drug-induced psychosis, schizophrenia and paranoid personality disorder are also linked to sustained abuse of marijuana/ cannabis with a high potency. Some acquisitive property offending and other youth-based offending behaviour are linked to substance misuse. Many young people who steal from shops, commit burglary and robbery, do so to feed a substance misuse habit. Criminal offending is also a feature of the networks within which cannabis/ marijuana use occurs. Substance abuse generally causes disengagement with education, training and employment; and can cause an increase in interpersonal violence, such as domestic violence; homicides and loss of inhibitions. Sustained marijuana/ cannabis abuse impairs visuo-spatial perception, fine motor co-ordination and perceptual reasoning and planning abilities.
The legalization of marijuana/ cannabis would lead to more people using it, more addiction, and especially in the case of the more potent variety, more antisocial behaviour, more disease and death, more violence and more disorder and chaos in Guyana and greater risk of serious harm to the general public. Marijuana/ cannabis abuse is already a scourge in many African Guyanese villages. Instead of legalization, marijuana/ ca-nnabis should be reclassified as more harmful because there is now some empirical evidence linking it to psychosis. The most effective response to marijuana/ cannabis use is criminalization and treatment. Guyana needs to train more substance use professionals.
Contrary to the pronouncements of President Obama and others, marijuana/cannabis is a potent and very dangerous substance. The affective di-mensions of high potency marijuana/ cannabis misuse/ abuse are irreversible impairment to certain neurological functions, disorientation of memory and thought processes, chronic demotivation, panic attacks and aggression. Male marijuana/cannabis abusers also experience a low sperm count. The Ameri-cans have suddenly realized that a bellicose and gung ho attitude towards drug trafficking and drug use will never work. Legalization is currently being mooted as the possible solution to smash the violent profits that come with trafficking and that too won’t work.
Wherever there is drug trafficking, there are guns. Yet with so much potential for violence in Guyana, there is no multi-agency criminal justice framework to manage the potential risk of serious harm to the public. Domestic violence continues unabated but yet there is no multi-agency framework in place in the form of a Multi-agency Risk Assessment Confer-ence, which is a forum where many practitioners meet and discuss strategy to manage risk of serious harm to victims and potential victims of domestic violence. The police would be expected to take the lead in many multi-agency meetings, but given the tattered image of the GPF they would find it difficult to muster the required professionalism. Instead of a viable criminal justice system, we have a colonial era dinosaur. We also have a poorly resourced mental health system and very few trained substance misuse workers. The legalization of marijuana/ cannabis in Guyana would unleash mental health, criminal justice and other challenges that we are not fully resourced and equipped to handle. Our priority must be to address the escalation of violence and drug trafficking. Hence the way forward would be to erect a multi-agency framework where social workers, the police, teachers, probation officers and others can work collaboratively in managing the increasing risk of serious harm to the general public and the increasing risk of vulnerability to women and children.
Yours faithfully,
Joseph B Collins
