I com­mend Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s re­cent pro­pos­al to raise the le­gal age for al­co­hol and mar­i­jua­na use to 21 and 25 re­spec­tive­ly.

This pro­pos­al aligns with a po­si­tion I have ad­vo­cat­ed for sev­er­al years. In May 2019, dur­ing the Sen­ate de­bate on the Li­cens­ing Com­mit­tee (Val­i­da­tion) Bill, I urged rais­ing the le­gal drink­ing age to 21.

Then, I ref­er­enced glob­al re­search in­di­cat­ing 12% of deaths among men aged 15–49 were al­co­hol-re­lat­ed, and stressed the rip­ple ef­fects on fam­i­lies and na­tion­al pro­duc­tiv­i­ty.

Our young peo­ple are nav­i­gat­ing a per­ilous time in their de­vel­op­ment—psy­cho­log­i­cal­ly, so­cial­ly, and bi­o­log­i­cal­ly. Sci­en­tif­ic da­ta re­in­forces that the brain’s frontal lobe, es­pe­cial­ly the pre­frontal cor­tex, isn’t ful­ly ma­ture un­til around age 25.

The pre­frontal cor­tex is re­spon­si­ble for de­ci­sion-mak­ing, im­pulse con­trol, ca­pac­i­ty for com­plex plan­ning, prob­lem-solv­ing, and mod­u­la­tion of so­cial be­hav­iour.

In­tro­duc­ing psy­choac­tive sub­stances like al­co­hol and mar­i­jua­na dur­ing this crit­i­cal win­dow im­pairs neu­rode­vel­op­ment, in­creas­es sus­cep­ti­bil­i­ty to ad­dic­tion, and per­ma­nent­ly al­ters life tra­jec­to­ries.

I called al­co­hol a “can­cer in so­ci­ety”—a sub­stance deeply em­bed­ded in our cul­tur­al fab­ric, yet wide­ly over­looked in terms of the dam­age it caus­es. I stand by that state­ment to­day. T&T has nor­malised al­co­hol in al­most every rit­u­al—birth­days, wakes, wed­dings, Car­ni­val, and sport­ing events. It is gift­ed at Christ­mas, sold open­ly near schools and church­es, and con­sumed at fam­i­ly gath­er­ings where chil­dren ab­sorb these habits long be­fore they take their first sip.

Ac­cord­ing to the Na­tion­al Al­co­hol and Sub­stance Abuse Sur­vey (NASHTT), many chil­dren are in­tro­duced to al­co­hol as ear­ly as 10 or 11. Over 75% of sec­ondary school stu­dents re­port drink­ing al­co­hol be­fore age 13. This is not so­cial ex­per­i­men­ta­tion—it is in­sti­tu­tion­alised poi­son­ing of our youth. It leads to in­creased road traf­fic ac­ci­dents, sui­cides, do­mes­tic abuse, school dropouts, and life­long men­tal health chal­lenges.

From a med­ical stand­point, there is no “safe” lev­el of al­co­hol con­sump­tion. The World Health Or­ga­ni­za­tion and IARC have clas­si­fied al­co­hol as a Group 1 car­cino­gen—on par with as­bestos and to­bac­co. One of the most sober­ing rev­e­la­tions from re­cent WHO stud­ies is the grow­ing link be­tween al­co­hol and breast can­cer, even in women who drink as lit­tle as one glass of wine per day. If we care about women’s health, pub­lic safe­ty, and long-term na­tion­al pro­duc­tiv­i­ty, we must act de­ci­sive­ly.

In 1984, af­ter the US en­act­ed the Na­tion­al Min­i­mum Drink­ing Age Act, there was a sig­nif­i­cant de­cline in al­co­hol-re­lat­ed traffic deaths among 18-to-20-year-olds. This is one of the sim­plest, most cost-ef­fec­tive pub­lic health tools avail­able. We must fol­low suit.

Sim­i­lar­ly, while pos­ses­sion of small amounts of mar­i­jua­na has been de­crim­i­nalised, we must not be­lieve this is harm­less. There is a cor­re­la­tion be­tween ear­ly-on­set psy­chosis, anx­i­ety, cog­ni­tive im­pair­ment, and mo­ti­va­tion­al deficits in ado­les­cents. I have seen far too many young men ad­mit­ted to hos­pi­tals from cannabis-in­duced psy­chosis.

When a young per­son us­es mar­i­jua­na, they are not sim­ply “lim­ing” or ex­plor­ing—they are rewiring their brain in dan­ger­ous ways. Stud­ies show that ear­ly and heavy mar­i­jua­na use can re­duce IQ, im­pair mem­o­ry, and re­duce aca­d­e­m­ic and oc­cu­pa­tion­al achieve­ment over the long term.

Rais­ing the age of ac­cess sends a clear mes­sage: these sub­stances car­ry risk, and we will not al­low our na­tion’s fu­ture to be squan­dered for the sake of tra­di­tion or prof­it.

This is not about pro­hi­bi­tion—it is about re­spon­si­ble pol­i­cy. It is about align­ing our laws with sci­ence and safe­guard­ing our youth from them­selves. While adults may choose to con­sume these sub­stances with full aware­ness of the risks, our young peo­ple de­serve time—time for their brains to ma­ture, for their goals to crys­tallise, and for their fu­tures to take root be­fore in­tro­duc­ing sub­stances that can de­rail all of the above.

Crit­ics will ar­gue that en­force­ment is dif­fi­cult or that young peo­ple will ob­tain these sub­stances re­gard­less of the law. But the same can be said of any law—speed lim­its, seat­belt use, or un­der­age dri­ving. Yet we en­force those laws be­cause we be­lieve they save lives. And they do.

Ad­di­tion­al­ly, I have pre­vi­ous­ly raised con­cerns in Par­lia­ment about the al­lo­ca­tion of for­eign ex­change—point­ing out the irony of forex be­ing used to im­port many dif­fer­ent brands of al­co­hol while phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal com­pa­nies strug­gle to ac­cess fund­ing for life-sav­ing med­ica­tions. This is not on­ly a pub­lic health con­tra­dic­tion, but a moral one.

I en­cour­age the Gov­ern­ment and Op­po­si­tion to work to­geth­er on this is­sue. Let us al­so in­vest in ed­u­ca­tion, re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion, and con­sis­tent en­force­ment of ex­ist­ing laws—es­pe­cial­ly those lim­it­ing the prox­im­i­ty of bars to schools, and hours of op­er­a­tion.

This is not a war on fun—it is a fight for our chil­dren, our com­mu­ni­ties, and our coun­try’s fu­ture. We owe them noth­ing less.