NARCOTICS-GRENADA: Fighting Marijuana on the Spice Isle

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Wesley Gibbings

ST. GEORGE'S, Mar 10 1998 (IPS) - The so-called “hard” drugs — cocaine and heroine — are hardly gaining a foothold in the small eastern Caribbean territory of Grenada, but officials here say the fight should be no less aggressive against the widely-used marijuana herb.

As a consequence, there has been a renewed drive to counter the ongoing argument that marijuana should be legalised or, at minimum, decriminalised.

The country’s 13-year old Drug Avoidance Secretariat, established within Grenada’s Ministry of Education, is focusing on dealing with what it says is a dangerous situation involving the use of the drug by young people.

Last year alone, more than 1,000 persons were hauled before the country’s magistrates courts to face charges of possession and use of marijuana.

Fewer than 150 persons were charged with “hard” drug offences. The majority were teenagers and young adults.

Police Superintendent James Clarke says marijuana arrests are on the increase and that he does not believe the solution lies in decriminalising the sale and use of marijuana.

“Decriminalising may reduce our drug related statistics but there will be an increase in other areas like our health and social problems,” he says.

His view finds support throughout the system. Chief Medical Officer in the Health Ministry, Bert Brathwaite, believes that while it might be true to say that marijuana has some medicinal qualities, its current widespread use has nothing to do with healing illness.

He points to the fact that using marijuana for medicinal purposes involves the use of a pure oral preparation and not wrapping it and smoking it. He says marijuana-based pharmaceutical drugs are already available.

Chief Psychiatrist at the country’s Mental Hospital, Dr Tidankole Obikoya, also takes a dim view of talk that marijuana should be legalised. He says there has been an increase in psychiatric cases in the country related to marijuana use.

Between 1994 and 1997, 211 persons were admitted to the Carlton House facility to undergo drug rehabilitation therapy.

It is thought that the outlying islands of Carriacou and Petite Martinique — both Grenadian territories — are important transit points in the trade in illicit drugs. The Grenada government has, as a result, established a monitoring post in Petite Martinique in collaboration with the United States government.

The new facility caused some concern among locals and the police had to quell noisy and threatening disturbances last year. Petite Martinique is a thriving destination for contraband alcohol and other goods from nearby South America.

Obikoya says while it is important to keep out the “hard” drugs, the largely home-grown marijuana trade should be kept under scrutiny for the hazards it is creating in Grenadian society.

At the island’s Rathdune Psychiatric Unit where addicts are rehabilitated, 98 persons have been treated for marijuana addiction over the past three years.

Obikoya believes there is a link between a number of social and economic problems such as high unemployment which now stands at 17.5 percent and marijuana use in the island. So, too, do the people at the Drug Avoidance Secretariat. Drug Avoidance Officer, Dave Alexander, says now is not the time to talk about decriminalising marijuana because major strides are being made in fighting the problem.

“Much progress has been made in reducing the production, use and trafficking in marijuana on this island and this progress must not be reversed,” he said at a recent press conference.

But Chairman of the Secretariat, Evelyn Cenac told IPS there are some obstacles. “There are a number of impediments. We are trying to come up with solutions to them.”

The problems may reside in the fact that when the Secretariat was first established in 1985, it was located in the Ministry of Education because its primary focus was demand reduction.

Today, official policy is directing much more attention toward halting the supply of drugs. The police and external agencies involved in narcotics exercises have, as a result, enjoyed the lion’s share of added resources and official attention.

Cenac says he believes an ongoing focus on demand reduction is vital to fighting the problem in the country.

“The emphasis has been on drug education and that is what we are about,” he says. Most drug fighting agencies in the Caribbean are located as functions in their Ministries of National Security.

Whatever the official configuration of the agency, observers say Grenada is likely to have its hands quite full in its attempts to stamp out the use of marijuana.