Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has called on par­ents to join the lob­by to have Gov­ern­ment in­crease the age lim­it for mar­i­jua­na use and gam­bling from 18 years to 25 years, since mar­i­jua­na ad­dic­tion and gam­bling are wreck­ing T&T’s youths and dri­ving crime.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar made the call at the UNC’s Pave­ment Re­port meet­ing in St Joseph on Mon­day night.

“This Gov­ern­ment le­galised mar­i­jua­na with­out im­ple­ment­ing all the nec­es­sary con­trols. Mar­i­jua­na abuse is dam­ag­ing the brains of our young peo­ple. This is not ‘Kam­la say so’, this is sci­ence. My gov­ern­ment gave your chil­dren lap­tops and schol­ar­ships. Row­ley’s Gov­ern­ment gave them mar­i­jua­na to smoke,” she said.

She added, “The hu­man brain fin­ish­es de­vel­op­ing and ma­tur­ing in the mid-to-late 20s. The pre­frontal cor­tex is one of the last parts to ma­ture and is re­spon­si­ble for self-aware­ness, the ca­pac­i­ty for com­plex plan­ning, prob­lem solv­ing, learn­ing and mem­o­ry, per­son­al­i­ty ex­pres­sion, de­ci­sion-mak­ing, and mod­u­la­tion of so­cial be­hav­iour.

“Af­ter age 25, when the brain is fin­ished de­vel­op­ing, you can go ahead and choose to do what you want. But un­til that age, we have to pro­tect our young peo­ple.”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar, who al­so de­tailed the le­gal ap­proach for Bam­boo No 2 res­i­dents to get a gat­ed com­mu­ni­ty, said the main dri­vers of crime in St Joseph were the drug trade and il­le­gal gam­bling.

She ex­plained, “The gangs are fight­ing for con­trol of turf to prof­it from these ac­tiv­i­ties. To fi­nance their pur­chas­es of drugs and guns, they re­sort to home in­va­sions, rob­beries and ex­tor­tion. They trans­port co­caine, mar­i­jua­na, il­le­gal im­mi­grants and guns up the Ca­roni Riv­er and of­fload be­hind Aranguez South Es­tate and El So­cor­ro. They’re ter­ror­is­ing farm­ers there be­cause they want no one to see what’s go­ing on.

“They use the Ca­roni, San Juan and St Joseph riv­er banks as trans­port routes to car­ry il­le­gal con­tra­band in­to their strong­hold com­mu­ni­ties. They con­tin­ue de­stroy­ing the flood pumps to wipe out farm­ers and get them out. They then bring in their crim­i­nal friends to squat on these lands to pro­tect them while mov­ing their drugs and guns.”

She said many vic­tims of crime in St Joseph no longer both­er to make re­ports to the po­lice.

“Some feel a fu­til­i­ty in this. Oth­ers fear fur­ther crim­i­nal reprisals. TTPS mem­bers must know what’s go­ing on in St Joseph,” she said.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar added, “This Gov­ern­ment le­galised mar­i­jua­na with­out im­ple­ment­ing all nec­es­sary con­trols. There are no le­gal dis­pen­saries and con­sis­tent mon­i­tor­ing of the qual­i­ty or ori­gin of sup­ply. In place of le­gal dis­pen­saries, peo­ple are buy­ing on street cor­ners from drug push­ers. The mar­i­jua­na is of­ten laced with co­caine. There’s no con­sis­ten­cy in the THC lev­els. That’s what gangs are fight­ing for: con­trol of these cor­ners. This Gov­ern­ment cre­at­ed this prob­lem.”

How ‘weed’ af­fects brains ...

Ac­cord­ing to checks on US and Cana­di­an web­sites, THC is delta-9-tetrahy­dro­cannabi­nol, a cannabi­noid—which is a chem­i­cal sub­stance.

Cannabi­noids have ef­fects on cell re­cep­tors in the brain and body and change how those cells be­have and com­mu­ni­cate with each oth­er. THC is re­spon­si­ble for the way a per­son’s brain and body re­sponds to cannabis, in­clud­ing the “high” and in­tox­i­ca­tion. THC has some ther­a­peu­tic ef­fects but al­so has harm­ful ef­fects. The lat­ter may be greater when the THC strength is high­er, web­sites state.

Not­ing that gam­bling and mar­i­jua­na ad­dic­tion are wreck­ing T&T’s youths’ lives, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said, “No par­ent would want their chil­dren en­ter­ing adult­hood in­volved in smok­ing mar­i­jua­na and gam­bling. I call on re­spon­si­ble par­ents to come and sup­port me, let’s pro­tect our youths, stop this scourge of drug use and gam­bling while starv­ing the gangs. We can­not de­pend on this Gov­ern­ment to act.”

She said gangs are al­so fight­ing for con­trol of gam­bling ma­chines and il­le­gal gam­bling.

“The gangs tax bar own­ers for all those slot ma­chines in St Joseph bars. Own­ers can’t re­port to the po­lice be­cause the po­lice ‘tax­ing’ them al­so. Since 2016, the Fi­nance Min­is­ter promised a suit­able gam­bling reg­u­la­to­ry sys­tem with ap­pro­pri­ate con­trols. Af­ter sev­en years—noth­ing!”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the on­ly peo­ple who would be against rais­ing the age lim­it from 18 to 25 years would be the crim­i­nals who ben­e­fit.

Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Fitzger­ald Hinds didn’t re­ply to calls for a com­ment on her call yes­ter­day.