There must be a national policy to deal with the roaming legions of drug addicts

Aug 30, 2015 Letters

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Dear Editor,
I can remember it as clear as yesterday. I was standing at the Sussex Street bridge at Barr Street, with some friends and I told them “before I sell a brethren crack, I would rather put a ‘nines’ to his head and pull the trigger.”
Economics have led many down a dark road, with some it was pure callous greed. Some confessed it was a springboard to finances needed. In the majority, the people enveloped by cocaine as beneficiaries cannot be described as ‘evil.’ Consumed by vanity can be fixed on many, but Mama Koka will make you evil eventually, as we have witnessed it do with many lawyers, law enforcement and politicians before our eyes in Guyana.
I remember dozens of situations of families struggling with members that cocaine had transformed into monsters. I can call numerous names of young citizens who have perished because of drug addiction, I can recall the efforts of Mrs. Doreen de Caries of Stabroek News around 1997, who tried to save a young soul in her employment. She implored me to volunteer and train him in fine Arts, and he had talent. She bought art equipment for him, but then, I was taken for a ride by an observing staff member who showed me a yard in Robb Street Bourda that sold drugs, he implied that we were fighting a losing battle and we lost it, we lost that young man to drugs. Under the management of the PNC, this scourge would never have grown into the epidemic it has become today. The ‘Baby Arthur’ incident at Buxton in 1994 was enough for any serious, people oriented Government to pay attention and act, the PPP did nothing.
The APNU-AFC administrations have not inherited a National Policy on any substance abuse, insanity, or a functional, responsible Psychiatric/de-tox Programme to improve on. I know this because the demon ‘Mama Koka’ entered my domain some months ago and I have been to Hell.
I did not grow up sheltered, so I had unorthodox resources I could tap into. When the time came, when I needed crucial help, I could find my way into the abyss of the drug yard to extract my own. This required that I roam the streets at the time that drug dealers told me the ‘Black-Joint’ was most potent, between 9pm to 5am. I believe even terrible experiences could provide life lasting information. In this case I learnt of, and witnessed from a personal perspective, the mind boggling world of drug addiction in Guyana and I have known that it has existed for over twenty years and did not arouse any official interest.
The current Ministry of Health response is the same psychiatric facility the now Minister visited and found to be at a concentration camp operational level, (see Stabroek News June 8, 2015).
I visited several offices. The courts warned me against committing any loved ones to the psychiatric ward. “God knows what could happen,” I was told. Officials lamented that persons on their staff were affected, but they had no practical direction to turn to. There are two rehab facilities throughout Guyana, one in Georgetown the other up the Coast. I had experiences with both; the Mon Repos facility is more effective by far, but these places cost money, serious money, with the transformations that addiction impose on its victims the family will suffer most; resources are depleted. Spiritual and mental equilibrium is torn and worst of it there’s no administrative structure to turn to. I must infer that prayer and spiritual dedication is significant. An underestimated percentage of violent crimes are committed by ‘drug induced psychosis’ and abusers at different levels. One of the last persons hung in Guyana, 1996 was a drug addict who killed a school boy, to steal his bicycle. Another killed a young man who was heading to his first day at work.
Drug feuds have slain hundreds, domestic violence is rooted in economics and substance abuse, addiction deaths range in the thousands over the last two decades. Take one look at the Montrose murder accused, and it speaks for itself. Addicts are the cheap expertise for burning houses, contract killing, and any spite extension. Over the past two decades no public utterances or actions of significance emanated from any section of the PPP state. In Georgetown, Hundreds roam the streets, mainly 80 percent young males. I recall compiling a document on this in 1998, I took it to UNICEF, but their representative couldn’t get the Government to give it the publication green light. Later, I gave a copy to Patrick Mentore, then at the US Embassy. He told me that his boss didn’t know that Guyanese were that conscientious. That boss was however Thomas Carroll. I showed another colleague, Harold Hopkinson. He came back a few days later and told me to my astonishment that he had done a survey and there were not that many addicts. There was no interest in acting for reasons that we now understand from the PPP and their confederates. However, some years later when my home was broken into, Hoppie did accompany me in search of the drug abuser, break and enter specialist, and there in a drug yard in Charlotte Street I saw a school friend ‘Sammy’, in a terrible state, horribly enslaved until his untimely death by the Mistress of that Yard.
There must be a national policy and programme to relocate the roaming legions of drug addicts, and to interface with the hundreds of families at wits end at what to do. Rehabilitation cannot be a democratic process, it must be enforced in a civilized way. From my knocking at doors I’ve learnt that there are a small group of people who understand. I have learnt much from them; they know what is necessary, but there is no umbrella organization to facilitate the necessary actions.
This young Government obviously has to repair the tremendous human devastation of the last, and be careful with the pretenders and ‘shut buttons’ so as to do this cost effectively. At ACDA I initiated an information data FACEBOOK Page called RESCU. We did one TV presentation and the after flow of parents and concerned citizens that reached out was alarming. Many with dark stories to which we could offer no help, or point to no direction within their circumstances. The responsible human thing has to be done.
Barrington Braithwaite

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