OVER the last year there have been several incidents reported in the media of drug addicts attacking and assaulting citizens going about their ordinary business. These drug addicts wander the streets, often carrying pieces of wood, or sticks or even broken bottles.

Last Christmas Eve, at about midday when shoppers were out in force, an athletic-looking addict stood at the corner of Robb Street and Avenue of the Republic, wielding a long and dangerous whip which could have caused serious hurt, even blinding, to an unsuspecting passer-by.

Last week, the son of a respected professional who had degenerated into a drug addict, suddenly attacked one of his father’s patients and beat him to death. The father heard the commotion and tried to intervene during the assault on his patient but he had to withdraw since he too may have been killed. The addict was taken into police custody and charged with murder.

Persons under the influence of drugs seem to lose their minds or their minds become perverted into machines of inflicting violence on others. They seem to lose their powers of reasoning. Most of them, however, could not be classified as insane as say, schizophrenia patients, and so they would not normally be sent to the Mental Hospital for psychiatric treatment.

In Guyana, two types of drugs are commonly used by drug addicts – cocaine and ganja. Very small quantities of other types such as ecstasy could sometimes be found, but drug users are firmly hitched to cocaine and ganja.

Cocaine is a foreign import, mostly originating in Colombia. Guyana, by the activities of criminal drug dealers, has become a transhipment port to North America. The cocaine in local use seems to derive from these transhipment stocks. There are numerous ingenious ways cocaine is smuggled out of the country and these are exposed from time to time as smugglers are caught.

One of the retributive incidents of cocaine smuggling occurred a few years ago: A member of a family who resided abroad visited his family and was returning with a few bottles of rum. Unfortunately, he forgot to pack the rum and it was left with his hosts. As there was no possibility of sending the rum to him, they decided to use the liquor. Two or three members of that family died from drinking that rum because it was spiked with cocaine.

The other common narcotic is ganja. Ganja is home-grown and has been in common use since the 19th century. There is no chemical process to produce it as is the case with cocaine. Ganja is simply the dried leaves and stems of the ganja plant and is used either as a tea but far more often, it is smoked.

It was introduced to the West Indies by Indian indentured immigrants who used it in certain religious ceremonies. That accounts for its Hindi name, ganja. Its use was strictly religious and there was never any addiction. Even when other ethnic groups adopted it, there was never any addiction. It was sold in the shops in the 19th century as is commemorated by the well-known folk song “Ganja Mannie”, where the African buyer is asking the Portuguese shopkeeper Mannie or Manuel to let him have a shilling’s worth of ganja.

The Jamaican Rastafari cult adopted ganja for ritual use and seems to have fully taken over the Indian tradition of its use. Rastafarians use an Indian-style smoking pipe, the cheelam, and other Hindi words are attached to its usage. Ganja was known to make its users “high” just as high wine (strong rum) did, but it rarely resulted in violent criminal behaviour.

Cocaine and ganja were, at one time, not regarded as feared and dangerous narcotics until after World War II. Cocaine was widely used as an anaesthesia in dentistry and was sold at the drug stores. And little notice was taken of ganja and its use. The transformation of cocaine and ganja into dangerous addictive drugs which could result in violent anti-social behaviour only came about in the 1950s and was a transference from the United States to Guyana and the West Indies. And, as if to underline this transference, the American name “marijuana” began to replace the native name “ganja”.

Cocaine is much more dangerous to mind and body than ganja. Indeed, there are groups in the West Indies, including Rastafarians, who are calling for the use of ganja to be legalised, pointing out its medicinal value and that it has been legalised in Holland and at least one American state. Local lawmakers cannot, however, ignore the transformation which has occurred in the concept and use of these drugs.

These drugs, as they are in America, are now regarded as dangerous and anti-social. The majority of deportees from the United States are believed to be cocaine users and they increase the local demand for the drug. Cocaine is the basic drug used in the drug trade with the United States and has connections with much of the serious crime in Guyana. National territory is illegally entered by cocaine-transporting aircraft and even small submarines for the same purpose. It has brought added policing costs on the taxpayer and more burdens on the judiciary and opprobrium to the country.

To the ordinary Guyanese citizens, however, their immediate concern is removing violent drug addicts from amongst them, addicts who could attack them without warning. Citizens are therefore interested in preventing young people from becoming drug users by means of education and in the rehabilitation of addicts and users. Education could be done along the lines of the anti-tobacco campaigns, at least one module in the curriculum of the Teachers Training College so that teachers would be able to bring anti-drug education to the classroom and Parent Teachers Associations (PTAs) should be involved so that parents may be alerted of the ways of protecting their children from drug use.

Rehabilitation of drug addicts and users should be a specific countrywide programme of the Ministry of Public Health, and personnel should be professionally trained in rehabilitation work to staff rehabilitation centres. At the moment there are only two rehabilitation centres, one privately-run and the other a voluntary one conducted by the Salvation Army.
With Education and Rehabilitation supplemented by efficient policing, drug use and addiction could be brought under control and eventually miniaturised.