Outdated drug laws hamper narcotics fight – Govt

Antiquated drug legislation is severely undermining the nation’s ability to combat the illicit drug trade, officials revealed on Wednesday. 

The disclosure came during the release of the Barbados Drug Information Network (BARDIN) 2023 report, highlighting urgent calls for legislative reform to address emerging psychoactive substances.

Both Minister of Home Affairs Wilfred Abrahams and research and information officer of the National Council on Substance Abuse (NCSA) Laura Foster acknowledged that the current legal response to address the threat of emerging drugs was riddled with loopholes and outdated frameworks and was in urgent need of up-to-date amendments. As it relates to new psychoactive substances, they expressed deep concern that people found with such drugs were only getting slaps on the wrist.

Abrahams said: “There are new psychoactive substances coming out and the legislation that deals with possession and trafficking and intent to supply, contemplates weights of drugs such as marijuana, cocaine and so on but it doesn’t contemplate for example ecstasy. So you will find that when persons are held with these drugs the charge would be possession but the other levels that you have to get to to qualify for trafficking or intent to supply are not there in the legislation. Many of these drugs may be actually worse than cannabis but because they are not accounted for in the legislation the persons will get a slap on the wrist and go long. So we do need to look at those and scientifically look at what the threshold should be for certain charges and update our legislation quickly.”

Referring to the Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act, Foster said the law only identified the controlled substances and set out penalties for drug-related offences relating to the more established psychoactive illicit drugs.

“The law is there, yes we don’t have trafficable quantities set out but there are broad-based provisions for sentencing persons for trafficking, for intent to supply, for possession,” said the researcher. “So what this is suggesting is that there is a potential gap in the knowledge which the judiciary has with regards to the dangers posed by these substances. They may not realise just how potent they are and how it only takes a little bit to do a big set of damage . . . Our Act does not encompass all of the emerging substances available on the island so we definitely need to do some work where our Act is concerned.”

There were 16 offences relating to the new psychoactive drug ecstasy in 2023, according to The Barbados Police Service statistics. But few of those people were charged with intent to supply and trafficking.

Foster said: “You are seeing that three-quarters of the offences for ecstasy were possession related, this may have something to do with our legislation. Currently, our legislation . . . sets out trafficable quantities for substances such as cannabis, cocaine; there are actually only a few, maybe about six within the legislation that they have those quantities for . . . . For ecstasy, there is no such trafficable quantity listed and that is also the case with a lot of the emerging substances that we are seeing.” 

She pointed out that the few people charged with trafficking or intent to supply ecstasy or other new emerging illicit drugs could have been charged on the outcome of investigations and not on the premise of a quantity threshold.  

She added: “This suggests an inherent weakness in our current legislation, something that is opening us up to vulnerability. Those loopholes you would have heard the minister speaking about, that is something we would need to address as we go forward.”

In 2023, police seized close to 13 000 kilogrammes of illicit drugs. There were 286 seizures of compressed cannabis totalling 10 930.68 kg; 175 seizures of loose cannabis totalling 899.92 kg; and 41 seizures of cocaine totalling 1 067.60 kg.

That year, there were also 48 seizures of cannabis plants, which totalled 13 021 plants and there were four seizures of methamphetamine/ecstasy totalling 3 342 tablets.

About 11 per cent of incarcerations by the Barbados Prison Service in 2023 were related to drug offences and the majority of the offenders were males under 40 years old.  

Foster also highlighted that research and anecdotal reports indicated that the marijuana strains being used in recent times were more potent than before. Stressing that this was of major concern, she said the potency levels increased the health risks.

“These newer, more potent strains of marijuana, yes they may produce more intense highs for the user, but they also have the potential to create greater negative consequences,” she said. 

(SZB)