Dear Editor,

The use of marijuana for recreational purposes cannot be a "good" thing. That should not be a basis for its decriminalization or legalization.

The issue is whether criminalization of the drug, given the enormous violence associated with the 'policing' by criminals of its supply, combined with the corruption facilitated by the sheer enormity of the profits arising therefrom, is or is not a greater societal evil than decriminalization or legalization. The evidence is overwhelming that criminalization produces the greater evil.

Yours faithfully, Romain Pitt

[end]

While the norm in most places nowadays is to run into a pharmacy and pick up some medication if one is feeling ill, the truth is that pharmacies, as we know them, have only been around for a couple hundred years.

People, however, have been on planet Earth for thousands of years.

What then did our ancestors use for medicine when they got sick? The answer, which many people have forgotten, is that many of the original medicines were plant-based. Humans, through trial and error, careful observation of the animals around them, and experimentation, learned over time which plants could heal and which could harm. This knowledge, obviously, was very valuable and carefully passed on from generation to generation.

[continues 913 words]

A government led by A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) would review the decriminalisation of marijuana, according to General Secretary Joseph Harmon, who says research needs to be done.

"We as the APNU, what we are committing to is a review of the laws as it relates to the use and sentencing policies as in relation to marijuana," Harmon told reporters on Friday.

Harmon said the coalition realises that many of the country's young men are languishing in the prison system because they were caught with small amounts of the drug and a study needs to be undertaken to ascertain if this has been beneficial to the country's development.

[continues 209 words]

Here's the biggest irony of Tuesday's mid-term elections: the US government will continue demanding that Mexico, Colombia and other countries fight the marijuana trade as part of its "war on drugs," while Washington voters have just approved making pot legal in the US capital.

Under an initiative passed by DC voters in Tuesday's elections, residents aged over 21 will be able to possess two ounces of marijuana and grow up to six plants for recreational consumption outside federal lands, pending congressional approval of the measure.

[continues 633 words]

Dear Editor,

Over the last years, there has been much said about police brutality towards members of our society, more so the poorer class. The first police force when established in London by Sir Robert Peel was designed to protect the property of the rich from attacks by the criminal, mostly poor element. The police attacks noted are just reminders of the real role of the force. It is not by accident they are called a 'Force.'

There is a huge gap in wealth between the rich and the poor . As a consequence, the poor have increased their criminal activities to reduce this gap. These acts of murder and robbery should not be condoned. What else can the poor do to redress this imbalance in wealth distribution?

[continues 152 words]

Dear Editor,

The President was acting in one of his more playful roles recently. It was reported that he seeks to make the country "totally inhospitable for drug traffickers. (KN, June 27). Acting aside, he is most unconvincing. I do not believe the President; I do not believe he has the will or skill to live out to that loud far-reaching statement. Quite candidly, this is simply more hot air from a president, government, and party that has an inexhaustible supply of such air.

[continues 459 words]

Dear Editor,

Regarding your thoughtful June 14 editorial, the move to decriminalize marijuana in Jamaica will definitely be worth watching. Guyana would be wise to follow suit.

United States President Barack Obama is allowing marijuana legalization to move forward. The next president may not be so enlightened.

Guyana should legalize marijuana now, before the US starts using its superpower status to bully other nations once again.

It's not just about opportunistic timing, it's the right thing to do. Marijuana prohibition is indefensible. If the goal of marijuana prohibition is to subsidize violent drug cartels, prohibition is a grand success.

[continues 112 words]

Last month the University of the West Indies hosted a three-day Cannabis Conference at its Mona campus, co-sponsored by UWI and the Cannabis Commercial and Medicinal Research Task Force (CCMRTF). Scientists and researchers from several countries addressed the likely economic implications of decriminalization, as well as the drug's sacramental uses in Rastafarian culture, and the commercial exploitation of its unquestioned medicinal benefits. Building on the Jamaican government's earlier gestures towards decriminalization, the conference ended with a 12-point roadmap that could, with sufficient political will, produce new legislation within a year. When Caricom leaders gather in Antigua next month they may wish to consider similar policies.

[continues 432 words]

GEORGETOWN, Guyana (AP) - Caricom researchers have found that decriminalizing marijuana and exploring its use for medicinal purposes could help boost the region's sluggish economy.

Caricom leaders are expected to talk about the preliminary report during the two-day summit that began Monday on St. Vincent. The report was released Friday to The Associated Press.

Experts said the Caribbean already has a built-in competitive advantage with marijuana cultivation, noting that Jamaican researchers have launched a company that produces therapeutic and cosmetic products derived from the plants.

[continues 171 words]

Dear Editor,

I am a criminologist who came to Guyana for 10 days last month to visit friends in the Corentyne area. I am also a speaker for Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP) which is an international group of current and former peace officers who are dedicated to drawing attention to the devastating consequences of drug prohibition. I made several observations during my trip which do not bode well for Guyana's efforts to control the global drug trade.

Although we thoroughly enjoyed our time with the Guyanese people, there were two events which we found quite disturbing. Both involved being stopped on the Rupert Craig Highway by heavily armed men. Had it not been for our driver who quickly identified them as military personnel or, on the second occasion, as police officers, we had no way of knowing that the intervention was legally sanctioned.

[continues 412 words]

LONDON - In the coming days and weeks, critics will try to minimize what voters in the US states of Colorado and Washington accomplished by backing referenda permitting marijuana legalization and regulation. They will likely produce puns and editorial gags about a legislative coup for "hippies" hosting patchouli-scented victory celebrations. They will be tempted to reduce the story to witticisms about hedonism and decadence in America's free-thinking mountain states. But such reactions will be wrong.

In fact, America's disastrous preoccupation with marijuana prohibition is more than a story of a relatively harmless substance being sent into legislative exile. Rather, it is part of the larger story of the country's misguided "war on drugs," which has resulted in the incarceration of more than two million people at any given time. It is a story of lawmakers branding young people with criminal records for actions that they may well have taken in their own youth but without getting caught.

[continues 405 words]

Six months ago, in the Mexican border city of Ciudad Juarez, a convoy of SUVs and trucks pulled up in front of a house party. Masked gunmen stormed the premises then rounded up and executed a group-teenagers as well as several adults who attempted to intervene. Sixteen people were killed -- five adults and 11 children -- and dozens more left wounded. Initially, both state and federal authorities claimed the violence was drug-related. Then evidence emerged that a local drugs cartel had in fact mistaken the party for a gathering of rival gang members close by.

[continues 968 words]

A Loud Silence

There are times when silence can be as eloquent as words. Take the case of Washington's reaction to announcements, in quick succession, from Mexico and Argentina of changes in their drug policies that run counter to America's own rigidly prohibitionist federal laws. No US expressions of dismay or alarm.

Contrast that with three years ago, when Mexico was close to enacting timid reforms almost identical to those that became effective on August 21. In 2006, shouts of shock and horror from the administration of George W Bush reached such a pitch that the then Mexican president, Vicente Fox, abruptly vetoed a bill his own party had written and he had supported.

[continues 922 words]

- - Police Say Gun, Ganja Found At Home

Two men said yesterday that they were badly beaten by joint services ranks at their Nottinghamshire, Linden home, arrested and then released.

Police in a press release issued yesterday evening said the men were in police custody assisting with investigations into the discovery of an unlicensed 12-gauge shotgun and a quantity of marijuana at a house at Nottinghamshire around 23:45 hrs on Thursday. However, when this newspaper spoke with the men at the Linden Hospital Complex, they were with their relatives seeking medical attention and were not under police guard.

[continues 381 words]

There is currently no mandatory drug testing programme for police and prison officers and while the Police Act does not provide for this the prisons service is not averse to implementing such a programme, Home Affairs Minister Clement Rohee said in a written answer in the National Assembly yesterday.

GAP-ROAR Member of Parliament Everall Franklin had asked Rohee to inform the National Assembly if such a programme existed for ranks within the two disciplined services. He also asked Rohee if such a programme existed, how often ranks were tested or to provide reasons if this was not so.

[continues 151 words]

A senior State Department official is to take to the US government, President Bharrat Jagdeo's new proposal for the establishment of a permanent branch of the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) in Guyana. .

Asked whether the US had any intention of setting up a DEA office here, visiting Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs, Thomas Shannon, said yesterday at the Office of the President that he was taking such a proposal back to the US with him.

Guyana had first indicated that it wanted the DEA to set up a permanent presence here in 1995 when Feroze Mohamed was home affairs minister. He had made a public appeal then, following the discovery of a huge gold-smuggling operation, but there had been no response from the US embassy.

[continues 699 words]

- - Terrorists, Not Ex-servicemen In Gangs

Retired army colonel Carl Morgan said drug trafficking and corruption in high places were responsible for the violent criminal uprising and he dismissed claims that ex-servicemen were behind the two recent mass killings, asserting that there were two gangs, one of which was associated with the drugs trade and the other comprising home-grown terrorists who saw no future in a society offering few opportunities.

Morgan, the current President of the Georgetown Chamber of Commerce is also the President of the Guyana Legion and a member of the Board of Trustees of the Guyana Veterans Foundation. He told Stabroek News in an interview on Tuesday that several ex-servicemen were particularly disturbed at recent utterances by President Bharrat Jagdeo and other government officials that former soldiers were behind the slaughter of innocents at Lusignan and Bartica. Morgan said those comments were unfortunate, noting that a quick look at the wanted criminals and those who had been killed would reveal that none of them was an ex-serviceman. "We cannot just apportion blame to anyone and randomly accuse people. If we don't know who are the killers then let's stay quiet," Morgan stated. He said he noticed that Jagdeo, at his recent press conference, attempted to clear the air on the issue, saying that 99% of the servicemen might be living orderly lives. Morgan said this was a welcome development although he was of the firm view that the damage had already been done.

[continues 1163 words]

Dear Editor,

Regarding your March 3rd editorial captioned "The US drug report and the crime crisis" the U.S. drug war is a cure worse than the disease.

Attempts to limit the supply of illegal drugs while demand remains constant only increase the profitability of drug trafficking. For addictive drugs like methamphetamine, a spike in street prices leads desperate addicts to increase criminal activity to feed desperate habits. The drug war doesn't fight crime, it fuels crime.

There is a middle ground between drug prohibition and legalization.

[continues 237 words]

Friday's rebuke by the US of Guyana's drug efforts will be hard for this government to lightly dismiss especially in the backdrop of the current UK-funded security sector reform programme which identifies the narcotics trade as a risk factor.

One would also expect that in the wake of the convening of the national stakeholders' forum on the crime crisis and the renewed sense of urgency in governmental circles, the criticisms contained in the State Department report will be weighed objectively and threshed to glean important insight on what is going wrong.

[continues 807 words]

Businesses Not Showing Interest - Rohee

The business community has shunned the government's crime stoppers programme, one of three major security projects which were introduced to the nation over the past three years but are yet to take off.

Two other projects, the ambitious drug strategy master plan and the Citizen Security Programme have also had a long shelf life. On Wednesday the latter will be finally launched.

In an interview with the Government Information Agency (GINA) recently, Home Affairs Minister, Clement Rohee acknowledged that the administration had been pushing for the Crime Stoppers Programme to be implemented but it has not been receiving support from the private sector. "It's not because of the lack of will on the government part. I have been aggressively pushing for this programme to come on stream but you see, the Crime Stoppers Pro-gramme internationally, is based on the involvement of the private sector," Rohee was quoted by GINA as saying.

[continues 1271 words]