By Kurt Campbell
[www.inewsguyana.com] – Guyana like other countries in the region is challenged by a lack of adequate economic resources and a frailty of institutional capacity to fight the drug trade.
According to the National Drug Report 2012 recently released by the Ministry of Home Affairs, this has inevitably created a bias impression that many of those arrested for drug related crimes are small-time producers or traffickers.
Both drug producers and drug traffickers violate Guyana’s laws and are criminals. Consequently strong political will is demonstrated as government confronts the security problems posed by drug trafficking and drug related crimes.
According to the report, as part of its strategy to address the drug trade, the Guyana Government considers it necessary that drug gangs, their networks and the seizures and forfeiture of their assets is a top priority.
At the same time, it is recognized that the degree of success in this regard will depend a great extent on effective bilateral and multilateral cooperation, since the world drug problem essentially requires the application of a global solution.
Notwithstanding the constraints, there have been several national initiatives to fight the scourge. The Government continues to exert every effort to implement international best practices in its fight, however national capacity to commit sufficient resources to eliminate the trade and its negative effects on society is constrained by the necessity to satisfy demands for resources from other vital sectors of the economy.
International Cooperation
It was underscored in the report that Guyana’s efforts are supported by extensive international cooperation. International programs support the targeting of cultivation, production, trafficking, abuse and other negative effects of the scourge.
“Those bilateral, multilateral, sub-regional, regional and global accords in which Guyana is involved, create a strong backdrop for our national anti-drug measures, because traffickers do not respect national borders no country can be effective unilaterally in tackling this global problem.”
The report also stated that Guyana is seeking to improve international cooperation in order to strengthen regional, hemispheric and global enforcement efforts while denying sanctuary to international criminals.
