Guyana 's drug problem
Editorial
Kaieteur News
May 18, 2007
The Customs Anti-Narcotic Unit made what must be considered the biggest drug bust in its history—all of 106 kilograms —on Wednesday and exposed the fact that regardless of the efforts to curtail the movement of drugs in this country, cocaine is still coming in large quantities.
There is no clear indication how this volume of drugs keeps coming into the country although one does not need a high school diploma to recognise that with our porous borders and with a shortage of enforcement officers—the Guyana Police Force is about 1,000 ranks short of its quota—drugs could enter this country almost at will.
For this reason, then it is imperative that Guyana increases its drug detection capability. For some time now there were people in the society who could identify every major drug dealer in the country. And while they were not bold enough to accuse the drug dealers to their face they made no bones in making them subjects of discussion in routine conversations.
There were those who were bold enough to pass on information to the police but in many cases the information and the name of the informant reached the ears of the suspected drug dealer.
The then Home Affairs Minister Gail Teixeira, and later, Deputy Charge d'Affaires of the American Embassy, Michael Thomas, loudly advised Guyanese to refrain from buying from the drug lords. Both officials also contended that the people “knew who these people were”.Bold, but accurate statements.
Large cocaine discoveries in Guyana are nothing new. There was the MV D anielsen that was seized just off the Guyana coast with some 6,900 kilos of cocaine. Then there were discoveries of cocaine in just about every conceivable substance—cocaine in fish, cocaine in vegetables, cocaine in cosmetics and cocaine in alcohol.
There were also finds of cocaine in picture frames, in footwear and of course, there was cocaine strapped to the body. People even secreted the drug in suitcases.
How did the drugs get here in such large quantities? By air, overland, and in some cases, by sea aboard vessels coming from ports in South America . Whatever the case, until the international community clamped down on Guyana drugs came and left. In many cases we here only learnt of the movement of drugs when the foreign authorities seized the shipments.
There were shipments in molasses—busted in Holland —cocaine in lumber and cocaine in coconuts. Guyanese simply shipped the drug by any means possible and without a doubt, some got through.
These external seizures caused the foreign authorities to demand that Guyana spend money that it did and still does not have to buy equipment to detect cocaine and marijuana.
Millions of dollars went in this direction—to establish equipment at the major airport and even at the wharves. And had Guyana not beefed up its wharves the powers that be would have ensured that no ships came here with food and material so crucial to our very existence.
Yet there is increasing evidence that cocaine keeps coming into the country and people keep devising innovative ways to move this drug to the foreign market where it would fetch a price sometimes four and five times what it would fetch in this country. It is this huge profit that encourages the drug trade.
Yesterday, Home Affairs Minister Clement Rohee said that Guyana , as exemplified by the destruction of the illegal airstrips, is serious about eradicating drugs from Guyana . Yet this seriousness is not reflected by the sentencing in the courts. We appreciate the jail sentence but there is a clause in the penalty that affords the magistrate to impose a fine that is three times the value of the drug. This is nearly always ignored.
The man who pleaded guilty to the large CANU cocaine bust was fined a mere $10,000. Had he been fined three times the value of the drug that would have been something, but then again he would have opted to remain in jail for a further six months.