Latest update April 23rd, 2024 12:59 AM
May 21, 2014 Editorial
Life is such that people often learn from past experiences. Rational people know that if they commit a crime they would be punished and if indeed they do commit the crime, rest assured that they would never put themselves in a position to be punished again.
Of course, people argue that there are rational people who are repeat offenders. This may be true but quite often external forces such as the need for some basic things in life would force these people to take another chance.
There has, over the years, been some examination of the impact of the cocaine and marijuana trade on the lives of the people in the society. Of course, before cocaine there was marijuana and this drug was primarily associated with those who profess to be Rastafarians. Before long it seeped into the wider society and pretty soon it began to represent a means of livelihood for those with large tracts of land and the wherewithal to move the drug to the market.
Many made their fortune peddling marijuana and some became adventurous and actually exported the drug. It was around this time that Guyana began to experience the presence of people who became mentally ill through the use of marijuana. The more the emergence of the mentally ill, the more the marijuana use because the wider view was that the drug was not addictive.
Cocaine then came and immediately the society recognized that it could not deal with cocaine addicts. In the first instance it never had and still does not have the wherewithal to conduct the desired drug therapy or drug rehabilitation programmes. A few private organizations try to offer this service but they are snowed under by the sheer numbers of the addicts.
And what makes the situation even more difficult is that many of those who seek a cure for their addiction soon go back to a life of addiction. The environment to which they return has not changed and so it is back to the same environment in which the addiction developed.
The drug trade in Guyana has reached epidemic proportions to the extent that the external entities monitoring our economic situation have concluded that drug earnings account for more than 60 per cent of the national economy.
But even as people conclude that the drug money is keeping Guyana afloat, they fail to take into consideration that it is killing the country. Young men and women no longer see an academic education as a necessity for life as a successful adult.
A survey might reveal that the drug trade and the AIDS pandemic are closely related. People addicted to the narcotic and psychotropic substances are most likely to engage in unprotected sex. They in turn would help spread the disease by coming into contact with those who seek excitement or who simply seek emotional release. Meanwhile, the lack of academic qualifications and the absence of skills to eke out a living condemn others to the ranks of the unemployed. They gravitate toward the drug trade and the vicious cycle continues. Crime soon becomes a way of life and human life loses its value.
We seem not to be learning from the experiences of the past and so we have yet another offshoot of the narco-industry—migration. The best of the society are leaving, taking with them the future of the country. Some claim that they are leaving in pursuit of earnings that could maintain them and their family; some because they want to avoid the crime that could claim their life; and some because they see the country heading downhill.
It may not be too late for us to act but do we have a commitment to act?
LISTEN HOW JAGDEO WILL MAKE ALL GUYANESE RICH!!!
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