– ‘VICTIMS’ APPLAUDING THE WEALTH OF THE ‘WISH MASTER’

WE have failed to intercept the marketing for illegal drugs of all types, with a marketing strategy and package against the usage and addiction of these products. There must always be the warning and the belt, as most tough juvenile parent testing offspring can tell, that the belt followed the stern warning. We recognised the dangers of marijuana when it hit Guyana. It caused an increase in suffering in grassroot areas that were invisible from the mid 70s down, to the authorities, until a particular series of events were orchestrated by an external involvement that resulted in a dossier of evidence being placed before then-President Hoyte, that demanded his intervention. He acted and following that embarrassing confrontation, marijuana came to the front burner and the not-well-thought-out mandatory three-year sentence for marijuana became law. This was a response to a process of not understanding, paying enough attention, coupled with the procrastination of indifference. But there followed no campaign of pertinent information to deflate the immortal cure for all, physical, spiritual, and mental superiority that this high was supposed to achieve, to date. In fact, I witnessed too many brethren die young. Perhaps or perhaps not, an edutainment campaign debunking the ganja mythology might have saved some lives, even a few; can’t be an alarmist crusader when it comes to human faith in anything that sounds mystical enough.

Why? Because I lived through that era then and lived addiction later as the custodian of a seed of mine, and I’m mystified with how quickly the veins of a negative mass trend can possess persons one would have thought, should have been wiser. Are we anymore enlightened in 2021, to recognise the need to not be indifferent on the pretext that people will through observation make the right choice? By 1985 Guyana was described as a major cocaine transit exit route in an edition of National Geographic. A school mate back then told me that the “money gon spread and people gon come out ah poverty.” He died in a GT drug war in NY that spilled over to Guyana, and we aren’t rich either, but we’re damaged. However, it’s not cocaine we’re looking at in this article; marijuana, or what has enveloped marijuana instead, and the impetus rests with a curious development that had inflicted a friend, a fellow artist, a sculptor who over two years ago began acting erratically and strange and seemed always in a hurry, not sure going where in particular, in engaging him if I didn’t know this brother before, I would have concluded that his condition, reflected another mental deterioration case in the constrained terrain of ‘living Guyanese’ we had some conversations and I knew something was wrong, he told me he had some offspring working on Robb Street, but I haven’t seen him for a while, over a year plus, so I’ve been making enquiries about his whereabouts. Because I’ve spent some time reading areas of science for a fictional work I’m doing, when the reality hit home and I turned to some acquaintances to enquire on local comparisons of what I’ve read, only to recognise that we have possibly lost our complete innocence as a nation, the Zombie products I read about are here.

The prophetic classic written by Mary Shelly we know as ‘Frankenstein’ should have carried its other title, ‘The Modern Prometheus’ in the context of the temerity of the times we live in. In contextualising that statement, I refer to events in 1988 when several reputable University laboratories began the process to create synthetic marijuana, Clemson, the Hebrew University, and Pfizer all proceeded to imitate nature and produce a synthetic cannabinoid to mimic the THC found in marijuana that is responsible for its high and also its psychotic capacity. The medical identification of these products is so far- HU-210, JWH-018 and CP 47,497. The ‘good intentions for doing this was to target the internal (a natural bodily system) – endocannabinoid system in our bodies [a coined term by researchers studying the effects of the Cannabinoid marijuana compounds like-THC] and regulate the negative effects of natural THC, as with the most popular Drug product-RIMONABANT, the intention was to “reduce Appetite, treat Addiction, harmful Cholesterol and Diabetes and ‘guess what? ’ Healthier sperm. But within months the side effects contradicted the projections. Restrictions were imposed on these medications, but the concept of the research is so tantalising that it continues.

Where the danger comes in, is in the underground and legal [now & again] market that uses the synthetic formula targeting an unsuspecting public. These are narcotic imitation marijuana like Spice, K-2, Yucatan Fire, Blaze, Skunk, and lots of other names. In closing I quote from the internet article by Alice G. Walton – by Jeff Lapoint, MD, an emergency room doctor and toxicologist “I drink a cup of water, and I’m fine. I drink gallons of it and I could have a seizure and die. Synthetic cannabinoids are tailor-made to hit cannabinoid receptors and hit hard. This is not marijuana. Its actions in the brain may be similar, but the physical effect is different.” Anticipated at 100 percent more severe than natural THC. Several of these synthetics have been here for a while; shouldn’t this other side of science get different legal treatment?
See also- Discover Mag. Nov. 2011