Pubdate: Mon, 05 Sep 2005
Source: Barbados Advocate (Barbados)
Copyright: Barbados Advocate 2005
Contact:  http://www.barbadosadvocate.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/3499
Author: Leonard Shorey
Note: Dr. Leonard Shorey, GCM, is an educator and a commentator on social 
and political issues.
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/pot.htm (Cannabis)

PROBLEMS AND OUTSTANDING ISSUES

Some developments in our country can give us a great deal of satisfaction 
while others are cause for great and legitimate concern.

Within recent months the Royal Barbados Police Force has several times 
reported seizure of considerable quantities of marijuana and reports 
indicate that the Force is very much on its toes in its efforts to track 
down and destroy marijuana being brought into our country, and to arrest 
and bring before our courts those involved in its transportation and 
trafficking. The task is not made easier by the relative nearness of some 
sources such as St. Vincent and, in addition, the Police must necessarily 
also be on the lookout for those within our country who are growers of 
marijuana.

For these consistent efforts to combat crime our Police Force is strongly 
to be commended, but these efforts alone cannot suffice and must continue 
to be supplemented by others.

In this connection tribute must be paid to organisations like the National 
Council on Substance Abuse (NCSA) and others which repeatedly seek to draw 
the attention of Barbadians to the dangers of using marijuana. 
Unfortunately such efforts are very seriously undermined by the public 
advocacy of marijuana use by some high-profile persons and by numerous 
lyrics to be heard on our airwaves.

Both these are highly reprehensible. Because of the obvious need for 
continued effort to sensitize our citizens to the dangers of the drug 
marijuana, it may well be that we should seek to emphasise such dangers 
even more strongly in the social studies curriculum in our schools. Of 
course we cannot and should not expect our schools to eliminate the problem 
for us, but they can certainly make a significant contribution by alerting 
students to the dangers of this drug which is seriously addictive despite 
denial of this by persons of some prominence.

In addition it is well-established that marijuana is a gateway drug and 
gateway drugs are drugs that can lead to the use of other substances. In 
other words, people who use these drugs increase their risk of using other 
substances & marijuana is psychologically addictive. It is worth noting 
that a CASA (Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia) study 
also links the use of gateway drugs by children with subsequent regular use 
of illicit substances as adults. The preceding information is readily 
available on the Internet at http://www.ncaddoc.org/atod-pages/gateway.htm 
and http://www.columbia.edu/cu/record/record2010.24.html. The absolute 
importance of seeking to sensitise our youngsters against this drug and its 
pushers must be evident to all.

In respect of the preceding we are clearly making serious efforts to tackle 
a major problem in our country but it is easy to identify situations where 
it is difficult if not impossible to determine where Government stands and 
what it is doing about certain other problems.

Consider: in early 2004 the Office of the Attorney-General commissioned a 
review of the legislation relevant to HIV/AIDS and the attendant 
socio-economic impact with a view to producing a comprehensive report 
providing recommendations for changes in existing laws. The report was 
submitted sometime ago but, to the writer's knowledge, citizens have had no 
indication of Government's likely response to the several recommendations 
made in the report.

This is a matter of very considerable importance to the whole country since 
several of the recommendations are highly controversial and have been very 
heavily criticised by organisations such as churches, and by many individuals.

One of the recommendations was that it would be necessary to bring 
prostitutes under the Public Health Regulations of the Health Services Act. 
A reasonable inference is that this recommendation is based on the 
assumption that requiring prostitutes to register in this capacity will 
ensure that they remain healthy and obtain proper and regular treatment for 
sexually transmitted diseases.

This is an extraordinarily naive and totally unwarranted assumption. Indeed 
available evidence from other countries makes it quite clear that very much 
the opposite is true, viz. that legislation requiring registration of 
prostitutes merely serves to drive the vast majority of them underground. 
Two examples must suffice.

According to one set of data from Greece such legislation is ineffective in 
public health terms: in Athens approximately 400 women are registered while 
an estimated 5,000 more prostitutes are not registered; in Germany, 
approximately 50,000 sex workers are registered and are regularly seen by 
the health services; however, according to recent estimates a further 
150,000 people work in prostitution. What is more, such measures can also 
create problems by encouraging prostitutes to hide from the authorities if 
they think they may be infected.

This information and much more is available from the website 
http://users.ugent.be/~rmak/europap/ and is provided by the European 
Intervention Projects Aids Prevention for Prostitutes. In light of this 
readily available evidence that requiring registration of prostitutes as a 
means of significantly reducing spread of sexually transmitted diseases is 
doomed to failure, citizens of Barbados need to know whether the Government 
will accept or reject the misguided recommendation in the report referred 
to above. Unfortunately one of Barbadospersistent problems is that it is 
extraordinarily difficult to get responses from the Arthur administration 
which frequently conveniently and cavalierly ignores them, no matter how 
important they are. Nonetheless citizens have no option but to continue 
asking questions.

The questions may not be answered but the problems and issues remain.
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MAP posted-by: Elizabeth Wehrman