From The Barbados Advocate

One does not like to see or even hear the Caribbean being dubbed continuously as a key transhipment point for illegal drugs entering the USA. The islands making up the Caribbean have for the most part been considered a region of peace and tranquility, respect for the rule of law and order, a family of nations trying to survive in a hostile environment. Not that criminality has been absent, far from it, as there have been issues with crime which for the most part has alarmed communities. By and large this has been kept to a minimum except for the known hotspots in some areas. Such a categorisation also indicates that somehow the people in authority are not doing enough to fight the drug trade in their own environment and therefore it continues to flourish.

But there you have it, the cocaine moving through this region to the USA has prompted those who follow the trends, to state that the Caribbean is no longer an innocent bystander to these issues of drugs entering the USA. Word is that drugs flowing through the Caribbean to North America have increased by an alarming 400 per cent between 2011 and last year. This information has come from William Brownfield, assistant secretary of the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs. He has said that the region accounts for 17 per cent of the drugs consumed last year in the USA, and that while this figure is tiny compared to the 80 per cent going through Mexico and Central America, it is still enough to worry about.

What is even more stunning about this discovery is that as Mr. Brownfield told journalists the region is now regaining its status as the preferred trafficking route of the 1970s and 1980s and that this is a problem that will get worse before it gets better.

Sounds frightening? It is, especially knowing all the trappings including criminality, that go along with narco-trafficking. Currently, the islands of the Caribbean – some moreso than others – are experiencing an increase in violent crimes – and many in the law enforcement agencies are linking the increase to the illegal drug trade.

Just as important it would be useful to know the factors that caused the Caribbean to fall from grace as a trafficking point – whether there was better interdiction back in the 1970s and 1980s; if more lucrative routes were discovered; and if the size of the islands made it risky business for drug traffickers to transit illegal drugs to the major markets of North America and Europe.

The answers to these queries could be used to determine how to effect policies to deal with the situation.

This is indeed a problem for the Caribbean, a point that Brownfield maintains in that it is a situation that cries out for greater co-ordination between the Governments and States of the Caribbean region and others of the international community.

Caribbean countries have to find the resources to deal with the situation. It is true that while many of them are hard-pressed to come up with additional funds to confront this menace they cannot allow it to get out of hand.

Better policing is necessary to combat this evil. Apart from that they have to work with other governments to tackle the problem.

For more on this story go to: http://www.barbadosadvocate.com/newsitem.asp?more=editorial&NewsID=41445
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