Letter: Minister's progressive comments on drug leniency should be acted upon

The following letter is in response to our June 10 story in which National Security Minister Wayne Perinchief said punishments dished out to petty drug users for cannabis possession may not ‘fit the crime’.

Dear Sir,

Oh my gosh! At last, brain wins over brawn. We need more Perinchief talent in Cabinet. I hope some money shifts along with the policy because Health will need it. This is clearly a step in the right direction that should have been taken long ago since its delay has cost Bermuda dearly.

All those people on the stop list who have been harmed by not being able to stretch their horizons, obtain higher education, retrain/train in skills Bermuda has needed, even to get away to avoid being shot, lost business opportunities…

I met a chap just the other day who has been on that dreadful list for 40 years! Imagine a mistake made as a teenager haunting an adult in his late 50s/early 60s. We want teenagers to experiment, find out what works and what does not — and they will experiment anyway, they are at that stage of human development. The damage prosecuting people (in the full knowledge that they would be stoplisted) has wrought on Bermuda will be hard to reverse.

I hope that this is a sign of the ‘progressive’ returning to Progressive Labour Party rather than a sign of an election just around the corner. I hope too that the Minister is not reversed by his Cabinet colleagues.

While this progressive mood is still with us, let us seriously consider other low hanging fruit ripe for the picking:

• 1. Let us never forget that the engine driving the plentiful supply of cannabis on the streets, or wherever it has had to duck to avoid arrest and prosecution, is prohibition — the laws making possession illegal. In those countries where prohibition has been lifted, the supply on the streets has fallen — Portugal being the most recent example. It will be a tricky time between the cessation of draconian punishments for possession of small amounts and the end of prohibition, because while the engine of prohibition is still running it will continue to fuel supply on the streets. Since we cannot expect to go there yet, that is, end prohibition, then the quantity possessed without prosecution should be raised enough to have the effect of bringing the price down and thereby discouraging entrepreneurs from entering the supply side of the market.

In other words let the law look away from growers of a few plants, which will help to reduce prices and kill the imported supply side. Once you have reduced the supply on the street then the policy is a success and our children/teenagers are protected a little better.

• 2. It is not too soon for Health to be looking at harder drugs. This may be a good job for the National Drug Commission, if it still exists, to start to work on harm reduction at least by way of funding. Heroin is causing a lot of harm both to its users, to those from whom money/possessions are taken by users to fund their habit (these people are sometimes attacked physically by users).

Police will confirm that a sizable proportion — a third or more — of this kind of crime, theft/burglary/assault is perpetrated by drug dependant heroin users. Would it not be a good idea to know who these drug dependant people are? I’d be willing to wager that there are way less than a thousand of them. If a register of known clinically dependant heroin users (addicts) was established then would it not be more humane to have dosage prescribed and administered by and under the supervision of a medical doctor?  Oh the agony and expense it would save together with a drop in crime by more than 30 per cent. Think of it: no overdosing deaths or deathly illness, no disease from dirty needles, no recruitment of new addicts by users selling to support their own habit, no handbag snatching or bopping old folks over the head for money and families of users would not find themselves in debt and having to throw out their dependant relative because they have nowhere else to go, and if a user’s supply is taken care of they could get and hold down a job!

• 3. There are now a host of drug alternatives for cocaine users: drugs which cause nausea if cocaine is taken or cause there to be no ‘high’, which could be tried with willing clients wanting to kick it.

A word of caution on cannabis use in the young: there is much evidence to show that cannabis in a minority of users triggers psychosis and is particularly dangerous for young brains under 14 years old so the policy shift needs to have an emphasis from educators, health professionals, anyone dealing with children to warn the young and parents that the drug is not appropriate for still developing young brains and use in the young can lead to long-term debilitating mental health problems.  

Almost all drugs come with warnings, we can’t all freely drink alcohol without some of us becoming alcoholics.

Delaey Robinson, St. George’s