Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

The Gov­ern­ment’s bill rais­ing the le­gal age for al­co­hol, to­bac­co, cannabis use and gam­bling was passed in the Sen­ate short­ly be­fore 1 am yes­ter­day, with Op­po­si­tion sen­a­tors ques­tion­ing whether hookah use would be cov­ered un­der the leg­is­la­tion.

The bill rais­es the le­gal age for al­co­hol and to­bac­co use from 18 to 21, and the age for cannabis use and par­tic­i­pa­tion in gam­bling ac­tiv­i­ties from 18 to 25.

It was passed with the sup­port of all 15 Gov­ern­ment sen­a­tors, while 12 sen­a­tors vot­ed against it, in­clud­ing all six Op­po­si­tion Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) sen­a­tors and six in­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors. Three in­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors ab­stained.

Dur­ing the de­bate, Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tor Vish­nu Dhan­paul queried the ab­sence of any spe­cif­ic ref­er­ence to hookahs in the leg­is­la­tion.

“I think that’s some­thing that should be giv­en con­sid­er­a­tion,” he said.

A hookah, al­so known as a wa­ter­pipe and orig­i­nat­ing in the In­di­an sub­con­ti­nent, is a sin­gle- or mul­ti-stemmed in­stru­ment used to heat or va­por­ise and smoke to­bac­co, flavoured to­bac­co or, in some cas­es, cannabis, hashish and opi­um.

At­tor­ney Gen­er­al John Je­re­mie did not specif­i­cal­ly ad­dress the is­sue in his wind­ing-up of the de­bate. How­ev­er, he ar­gued that the Unit­ed States and oth­er ju­ris­dic­tions have recog­nised that al­co­hol, to­bac­co, cannabis use and gam­bling are ac­tiv­i­ties that war­rant reg­u­la­tion.

Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials lat­er told the Guardian Me­dia that hookahs would be cov­ered un­der the de­f­i­n­i­tions of “to­bac­co” and “smok­ing” con­tained in the To­bac­co Con­trol Act.

Dhan­paul al­so ar­gued that po­lice re­sources would be di­vert­ed from ad­dress­ing se­ri­ous crimes af­fect­ing the coun­try.

“Po­lice time, which could be spent deal­ing with mur­ders and oth­er crimes, would now be spent chas­ing youths try­ing to buy a Carib at a beach lime,” he said.

“This bill treats adults as chil­dren and chil­dren as crim­i­nals. It sets fines no young per­son can pay and leaves the re­al price to a min­is­ter’s or­der.”

He fur­ther crit­i­cised sev­er­al pro­vi­sions of the leg­is­la­tion.

“It im­pos­es 30-year sen­tences for the sale of liquor, it re­opens a cannabis ques­tion Par­lia­ment set­tled in 2019, in­trudes on re­li­gious ob­ser­vances and dri­ves young peo­ple to­wards the street deal­er and the off­shore ac­tor,” Dhan­paul said.

“It strikes at busi­ness­es and work­ers al­ready bur­dened by dou­bled du­ties. It de­pends on po­lice and court time and pro­grammes that do not ex­ist, and the amend­ments haven’t cured it. They give one ex­emp­tion to the young work­er and, in ex­change, added a new of­fence.”

Re­fer­ring to re­cent Gov­ern­ment leg­is­la­tion, in­clud­ing the Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions Bill, Dhan­paul added: “It’s clear this Gov­ern­ment wants to per­pe­trate on the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go some­thing George W. Bush had termed an ‘ax­is of evil’.”

The Sen­ate was sub­se­quent­ly ad­journed un­til next Tues­day, the day af­ter the pre­sen­ta­tion of the 2027 Bud­get.

The ad­journ­ment mo­tion was ap­proved with 22 votes in favour, com­pris­ing the 15 Gov­ern­ment sen­a­tors and sev­en in­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors. The six Op­po­si­tion sen­a­tors vot­ed against the mo­tion, while two in­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors ab­stained.

When the Sen­ate re­con­venes, it is ex­pect­ed to de­bate the Mis­cel­la­neous Pro­vi­sions Bill, which pro­pos­es lo­cal gov­ern­ment re­forms, in­clud­ing the cre­ation of three new bor­oughs, bound­ary ad­just­ments and oth­er mea­sures. The bill was de­bat­ed in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives yes­ter­day.