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Cocaine in sweets…CMO expresses concern about children exposed to narcotics
Chief Medical Officer of the Ministry of Health, Dr. Shamdeo Persaud has expressed concern about the recent findings of cocaine laced sweets which were accessed by small children in the Mabaruma, NWD, on Wednesday.
Persaud told Kaieteur News on Thursday that the Ministry of Health’s Food and Drugs Department has already been informed about the situation and will be on the alert for any similar cases that may arise as a result of Wednesday’s mishap.
“I am very concerned that a substance like this is available and easily accessible by children in our country…” Persaud said.
He added that the response to these events are critical because when persons fall sick, there is a need to identify what they were exposed to, so as to provide adequate care and treatment.
Dr. Shamdeo Persaud
“As far as we understand the packages were appropriately labeled, packaged and displayed for sale, so we need to investigate and I so hope by now that they have already issued an order to restrict the further sale of that batch of contaminated sweets,” the CMO said.
The CMO also said that with the involvement of the police there should be a quick response to have the batch of contaminated candy recalled.
Dr. Persaud added that there is still need for more stringent sampling and testing of foods.
“I don’t know how you can track those batches of sweets. Maybe if they were on the larger packs they might have been a batch number but I will have to find out that,” the CMO said.
He added that last week, the Ministry of Health, in collaboration with the Caribbean Public Health Agency, conducted a training exercise for food inspectors to improve food sampling.
“We have found that in this area they are very weak so occasionally the ministry will actually provide funding for our inspectors to buy different forms of foods so they can sample and test and that is the biggest action we can take,” Dr. Persaud noted.
Police in a press statement on Wednesday said that a number of the sweets that were seized by the police from a vendor and children at White Water, North West District two Sundays ago, following reports that three children who had eaten the sweets had shown unusual reactions, have tested positive for the presence of cocaine.
According to a police source, 88 of the sweets tested positive for the addictive substance.
The sweets were wrapped in paper that bore the brand of a popular local sweet manufacturer.
Police had already taken a statement from the shopkeeper who claimed that he had purchased the sweets in a sealed packet from another distributor.
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