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Jan 18, 2009 News
Despite the authorities’ pleas, best efforts…
By Rustom Seegopaul
In the chilly atmosphere of Paramakatoi, in Region Eight, the cultivation, use and sale of marijuana still abounds, despite appeals made last year, by no less than the Minister of Agriculture, Robert Persaud, for residents of Region Eight to stop producing the narcotic.
While some residents of the mountain top village have noted that much of the cannabis is grown in areas outside of Paramakatoi, it is still common knowledge that a large percentage of the drug is moved out of Region Eight through the area’s airstrip.
According to reports from that community, persons from Mahdia and Georgetown fly into Paramakatoi and spend a few days, often departing with large quantities of marijuana.
The Minister of Agriculture had previously visited the mountain top community in September, last year, where he extended his Ministry’s ‘Grow More’ campaign to persons living in the Region Eight area.
While he was there, he highlighted the negative impact, both socially and physically, of drug use to the community.
“We need to tackle this as a community and that is where we are looking to have farmers engaged in vegetable production. I am very concerned because marijuana can have a damaging effect on children,” Minister Persaud said.
The use of this drug, he reminded, can also have negative social consequences on children and adults.
There have already been reports, the Minister pointed out, about persons already affected by this practice within the community.
“We want you to plant crops and things that you can earn a legal living by selling.”
The significantly colder climate in Paramakatoi, the high quality of the soil and the scarcity of law enforcement personnel in Paramakatoi make it one of the most ideal places for the cultivation of cannabis.
“The soil here is of high quality,” noted a resident as he cited the high quality of cash crops, fruits and other produce which comes from the soil of Paramakatoi. “Put that together with the cold weather, and the fact that there are virtually no police and you have an almost excellent place to grow weed.”
Additionally, some of the persons living in Paramakatoi cultivate marijuana for personal use or for sale within their own community. Reports have said that a number of persons in the village sell the drug to other community members, and it is no real secret that certain persons grow the herb in Paramakatoi.
Residents of Paramakatoi survive primarily on subsistence farming and on mining, and only a handful of persons living in the village have traditional jobs that give them a fixed salary at the end of the month.
Due to this, many supplement their income by growing marijuana. One such man said that he had planted cannabis for a number of years, but has since started going to church, and from the revelations he saw in church, has decided to stop planting the narcotic.
“I decided to stop planting weed,” he said. He explained that he still needed to supplement his meagre income so he started to take up craft, making jewellery, wallets and bags. “I walked all over the village, and to Red Creek and to Kato, trying to sell my craft, but no one wanted to buy any of it. They didn’t have the money.”
The man pointed out that while he had tried to push his craft business, the people of Paramakatoi did not have the spending power to buy things they did not need. Also, the number of tourists coming into Paramakatoi was relatively small, and most tourists buy their souvenirs in Georgetown.
“My farm barely gives my family enough to eat, and my children will go hungry if I don’t find another source of income,” he said thoughtfully, “so I think I will have to start planting weed again.”
Echoing similar sentiments, some of the farmers in Paramakatoi quietly said that marijuana is the only thing they can grow which persons are willing to buy to transport out of their village.
In the past, Paramakatoi’s farmers had produced cash crops for sale in Georgetown, but the roadways leading to the village are virtually nonexistent, and the expensive air freight (approximately $128 per pound) deters anyone from transporting the crops via air.
“If you want people to stop growing marijuana and start producing crops, then you need to ensure that there is a market for their produce,” said one of the more vocal farmers. “Almost everyone here is poor, and they cannot afford to make any sort of a loss.”
This, he said, is why many of the residents of the village, and its outlying areas, do not trust new ideas and new techniques, preferring to stick with what they already know, since they know that it works and what its worth.
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