WITH the post-slavery era came the job crisis of wages, diseases born here and shipped from other shores; coupled with other belief systems, and in-depth racism, nurtured by the very dregs of the plantation hierarchy, the crisis of protests based on survival, and with the First and Second World Wars, with the second luring migration to the then colonial mother land… and onto the experiment with America. But so far, nothing has anchored itself like the impact of the narcotic presence and its infestation on our youth, our homes and our faith in the supernatural and, worse, the belief systems that envelope our existence.

As a parent, I have endured my own pain and the pain of others for some seven years. When it comes to the age of the mind-devouring substances that have invaded and persist in tempting and preying upon the gullible and ignorant, no other era of medical malice against the populace has been more destructive than the ‘age of Narcotics’ that emerged in full aggression during the late 1980s to the present.

I had placed my charge in observation, and I did seek published sources to understand this onslaught. Both marijuana and cocaine took home people I know from this world. This artificial plague then entered realms that I was responsible for as a parent. I recognised that, upon exploring what was available, I had engaged in a process that required the application and support of an enclosure manned from within and externally by an enforced and scientific oversight, that can anticipate the downside of what to expect, and how to react.

I saw an article this weekend that I may have missed earlier; the name Colonel Desmond Roberts came up. This is a resource, among others, that can be of active interest. With the problem this article addresses, it was Stabroek News, Feb. 1st. This is a new, imposed situation that has encroached on our nation. Its impact, we, or most of us, have witnessed or have been tortured by the helplessness of how to engage. Apart from the rough reality and some experience, colleagues and I conducted an engagement programme in the not-so-distant past, titled RESCU; ours was merely data-driven, and the temptation arises again.

Many people involved in that world have used the “no way out” financial option. I cannot deny, nor justify, but to reach the potential victim, that can be done. So far, the element of reasoning can be a tool, with supporting tools directed at the consciousness.