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. - --- MAP posted-by: Elizabeth Wehrman