WASH­ING­TON–The Unit­ed States says cor­rup­tion, lack of sus­tain­abil­i­ty of gov­ern­ment fund­ed pro­grammes as well as gaps in leg­isla­tive and or­gan­i­sa­tion­al im­ple­men­ta­tion con­tin­ue to be chal­lenges fac­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go in its ef­forts to curb the traf­fick­ing and use of il­le­gal nar­cotics.

The US De­part­ment of State in its just re­leased "2014 In­ter­na­tion­al Nar­cotics Con­trol Strat­e­gy Re­port" notes that the lo­ca­tion of the oil-rich twin is­land re­pub­lic, porous bor­ders, and di­rect trans­porta­tion routes to Eu­rope, West Africa, Cana­da and the Unit­ed States make it an ide­al lo­ca­tion for co­caine and mar­i­jua­na trans­ship­ment.

Wash­ing­ton said that mar­i­jua­na is pro­duced in Trinidad and To­ba­go and is the most wide­ly used drug do­mes­ti­cal­ly, but oth­er drugs, in­clud­ing co­caine, hero­in, sol­vents, phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals, and ec­sta­sy, are al­so avail­able. It said in­ter­dic­tion ef­forts are ro­bust and con­tin­u­ing and though over­all seizures in 2013 in­creased from 2012, the Trinidad and To­ba­go gov­ern­ment con­tin­ues to strug­gle to co­or­di­nate and ad­e­quate­ly fund its coun­ternar­cotics ef­forts.

"Re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion fa­cil­i­ties are in­suf­fi­cient and un­der- re­sourced to meet lo­cal de­mand for treat­ment. Lack of sus­tain­abil­i­ty of gov­ern­ment fund­ed pro­grammes, par­tic­u­lar­ly in the area of de­mand re­duc­tion, cor­rup­tion, and gaps in leg­isla­tive and or­gan­i­sa­tion­al im­ple­men­ta­tion re­main chal­lenges to the coun­try's ef­forts to curb the traf­fick­ing and use of il­le­gal nar­cotics."

Wash­ing­ton said that while the coun­try con­tin­ues to demon­strate a high lev­el of com­mit­ment to drug con­trol by fos­ter­ing bi­lat­er­al co­op­er­a­tion and in­tel­li­gence shar­ing with coun­tries of ori­gin, tran­sit and des­ti­na­tion, "there is con­tin­u­ing dis­trust with­in and be­tween units of law en­force­ment, the mil­i­tary, and the in­tel­li­gence com­mu­ni­ty pre­vent­ing ef­fec­tive in­for­ma­tion shar­ing and col­lab­o­ra­tion.

"Strict ad­her­ence to rigid and of­ten out­dat­ed method­olo­gies by mid-lev­el of­fi­cials, as well as re­stric­tive de­ci­sion mak­ing sys­tems that do not em­pow­er func­tionar­ies, lim­it the abil­i­ty of these crit­i­cal or­gan­i­sa­tions to in­no­vate and keep pace with high­ly flex­i­ble crim­i­nal or­gan­i­sa­tions."Even with in­creas­es to the na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty bud­get in 2013, coun­ternar­cotics units con­tin­ue to lack suf­fi­cient spe­cialised equip­ment and per­son­nel, and reg­u­lar­ly re­quest sup­port from in­ter­na­tion­al donors," the re­port not­ed.

Wash­ing­ton said mar­i­jua­na is the on­ly known lo­cal­ly-pro­duced il­lic­it drug and that pro­duc­tion is con­cen­trat­ed in small farms in the heav­i­ly forest­ed, moun­tain­ous re­gions.It said lo­cal pro­duc­ers com­pete with im­ports from St Vin­cent and the Grenadines, Ja­maica, Guyana, and Venezuela and that oth­er il­lic­it drugs�pri­mar­i­ly co­caine, but al­so small amounts of hero­in and ec­sta­sy� are traf­ficked through the coun­try by transna­tion­al or­gan­ised crime groups op­er­at­ing in Trinidad and To­ba­go.

"There has been an in­crease in Ja­maican na­tion­als with­in Trinidad and To­ba­go bar­ter­ing ship­ments of mar­i­jua­na for co­caine for re-ex­port. In ad­di­tion, in­creased gov­ern­ment erad­i­ca­tion ef­forts have dri­ven up the lo­cal price of mar­i­jua­na, caus­ing some traf­fick­ers to shift their fo­cus from co­caine to mar­i­jua­na. "Wash­ing­ton said law en­force­ment en­ti­ties in Port-of-Spain seized 110.6 kilo­grammes of co­caine and 3.7 met­ric tonnes of mar­i­jua­na be­tween Jan­u­ary and Sep­tem­ber, 2013.

"Ap­prox­i­mate­ly 328,600 ma­ture mar­i­jua­na trees were al­so de­stroyed dur­ing this pe­ri­od. High­er seizure rates could in­di­cate in­creased ef­forts by and a greater abil­i­ty of law en­force­ment of­fi­cers to de­tect traf­fick­ing.

"It may al­so in­di­cate an in­crease in the vol­ume of prod­uct be­ing traf­ficked through Trinidad and To­ba­go, which would be con­sis­tent with re­ports that project an in­crease in traf­fick­ing through the Caribbean as a re­sult of coun­ternar­cotics ef­forts in Cen­tral Amer­i­ca and Mex­i­co," the re­port said, not­ing, how­ev­er, that pros­e­cu­tion and con­vic­tion rates for nar­cotics of­fens­es are low."While 4,027 peo­ple were ar­rest­ed for pos­ses­sion and an­oth­er 468 for traf­fick­ing in 2013, on­ly 58 small scale traf­fick­ers were con­vict­ed dur­ing the year."

Wash­ing­ton said the en­ti­ties and in­di­vid­u­als work­ing to com­bat nar­cotics in Trinidad and To­ba­go face con­sid­er­able in­sti­tu­tion­al chal­lenges that im­pede their ef­fec­tive­ness.

"Se­nior lead­ers have not been suc­cess­ful in trans­lat­ing po­lit­i­cal will to com­bat traf­fick­ing in­to op­er­a­tional ef­fec­tive­ness. To raise con­vic­tion rates and de­ter traf­fick­ers, the Gov­ern­ment of Trinidad and To­ba­go should im­ple­ment re­forms to ex­pe­dite pros­e­cu­tions, re­vise out­dat­ed laws and stan­dard op­er­at­ing pro­ce­dures, and es­tab­lish an ev­i­dence-based crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem," it added.