Above: Bahamian National Security Minister Tommy Turnquest (BIS Photo)

By the Caribbean Journal staff

The Bahamas is launching a national plan to tackle what the government considers a still-serious drug problem.

Drug abuse is manifesting itself most frequently in the use of marijuana, according to National Security Minister Tommy Turnquest.

“Attitudes are also driving the problem, particularly the thinking that marijuana is not a dangerous drug, but a recreational one,” he said. “The abuse of prescription drugs is also a matter for concern.”

Drug seizures, particularly those involving cocaine, have fallen sharply since the 1970s and 1980s in the Bahamas, but Turnquest said many young people were now abusing marijuana and experimenting with the domestic production of the drug.

“The number of illegal activities increasingly being associated with the drug problem are well known,” he said. “They include illegal immigration, migrant smuggling and the trafficking in illegal firearms. The trafficking of illegal guns is particularly egregious, because of the crime and violence they engender in the country.”

Turnquest said that countering drug-trafficking and drug abuse was an “integral part” of the government’s stepped-up crime-fighting strategies.

The government has launched a five-year National Anti-Drug Strategy through 2016 aimed at addressing issues relating from the illicit drug trade.

“This is the framework in which action will be taken over the next five years to counter the illicit production, trafficking and abuse of narcotic drugs and psychotropic substances,” he said. “Its principal focus is on building collaborative partnerships to curb demand, reduce supply, disrupt trafficking networks and promote healthy drug-free lifestyles, especially among youth.”

The growing problem of the drug trade, both in Latin America and the Caribbean, has led some, most notably Guatemalan President Otto Perez Molina, to call for a legalization of drugs in a bid to stop crime.