Minister blasts drug-using parents

Parents who use illegal drugs in front of their children were today condemned by two ministers in Parliament.

Minister of Foreign Trade Sandra Husbands declared parental drug use the single biggest challenge in the anti-drugs fight, as she debated changes to the National Council on Substance Abuse (NCSA) Amendment Bill 2019.

H“The problem has escalated now where a child in Barbados can grow up in his or her home where the indiscriminate use of marijuana is acceptable is normal.

“Imagine that child sitting in school being confronted by a NCSA [National Council on Substance Abuse] programme officer seeking to educate him or her about the potential damage they are doing with the indiscriminate use and abuse of marijuana and they go home to a parent who uses it as will and may even promote the sale of it in their community,” she said.

Earlier, while leading off debate on the bill, Minister of Home Affairs Edmund Hinkson said: “If you want to use it don’t involve your children in that. At age six, seven, eight, nine, ten they should be enjoying their lives and developing character.”

Husbands said it was unfair to innocent children and called for unemotional discourse on the use of marijuana and its effects.

She added: “This is a tremendous conundrum and it is unfair to our children. One of the things this society has to do… We have to sit and examine the facts not the opinions not the views not the preferences not the likes and dislikes or biases of those for or against the issue of the use of marijuana.

“We have got to sit and examine the science that says to us is this safe for use. We should be discussing how should it be used; and how should it not be used.… As a sensible society we need then to formulate policy we need to formulate law that then gives life to the very best management of that substance called marijuana.”