Dear Editor,
Economics have led many down a dark road; with some it was pure callous greed, while others confessed it was a springboard to needed finances. In the majority of cases, the people enveloped by cocaine cannot be described as ‘evil’ consumed by vanity, but Mama Koka will make them evil eventually, as we have witnessed with lawyers, law enforcement and politicians before our eyes in Guyana.
I remember dozens of families struggling with members whom cocaine had transformed into monsters. I can call the names of numerous young citizens who have perished because of drug addiction. I can recall the efforts of Mrs Doreen de Caires of Stabroek News around 1997, who tried to save a young soul in her employment. She implored me to volunteer and train him in fine arts, because he had talent. She bought art equipment for him, but then I was taken for a ride by an observant staff member who showed me a yard in Robb Street, Bourda that sold drugs. He implied that we were fighting a losing battle and we lost it; we lost that young man to drugs.
Under the management of the PNC this scourge would never have grown into the epidemic it has become today. The ‘Baby Arthur’ incident at Buxton in 1994 was enough for any serious, people-oriented government to pay attention to and act; the PPP did nothing. The APNU+AFC administration has not inherited a national policy on substance abuse or insanity, or a functional, responsible psychiatric treatment/detox programme which they could improve on. I know this because the Demon Mama Koka entered my domain some months ago and I have been to hell.
I did not grow up sheltered, so I had unorthodox resources I could tap into when the time came; when I needed crucial help I could find my way into the abyss of the drug yard to extract my own. This required that I roam the streets at the time that drug dealers told me the ‘Black-Joint’ was most potent, between 9pm to 5am. I believe even terrible experiences could provide life-lasting information, in this case I learnt and witnessed from a personal perspective the mind-boggling world of drug addiction in Guyana and I have known that it has existed for over twenty years and did not arouse any official interest.
The current Ministry of Health response is the same psychiatric facility the current Minister visited and found to be at a concentration camp operational level (see Stabroek News June 8, 2015). I visited several offices. The courts warned me against committing any loved ones to the psychiatric ward, “God knows what could happen,” I was told. Officials lamented that persons on their staff were affected but they had no practical place to which they could turn. There are two rehab facilities in the whole of Guyana, one in Georgetown the other up the coast, I had experiences with both, and the Mon Repos facility is more effective by far. But these places cost money, serious money, and with the transformations that addiction imposes on its victims the family suffers most, and resources are depleted. Spiritual and mental equilibrium is torn and the worst of it is that there’s no administrative structure to turn to. I must presume that prayer and spiritual dedication is significant.
An underestimated percentage of violent crimes is committed by those suffering from drug induced psychosis, as well as other drug abusers at different levels. The last person hanged in Guyana, in 1996, was a drug addict who killed a schoolboy to steal his bicycle. Drug feuds have slain hundreds; domestic violence is rooted in economic pressure and substance abuse; addiction deaths range in the thousands over the last two decades. Addicts are cheap to hire for burning houses, contract killings, and any spite extension. Over the past two decades no public utterances or actions of significance emanated from any section of the PPP state. In Georgetown, hundreds roam the streets, 80% of them young males. I recall compiling a document on this in 1998. I took it to Unicef but their Rep couldn’t get the government to give the publication the green light. Later I gave a copy to Patrick Mentore, then at the US embassy. He told me that his boss didn’t know that Guyanese were that conscientious. That boss was, however, Thomas Carroll. I showed another colleague, Harold Hopkinson, and he came back a few days later and told me to my astonishment that he had done a survey and there were not that many addicts. There was no interest in acting for reasons that we now understand.
However, some years later when my home was broken into, Hoppie did accompany me in search of the drug abuser, a break and enter specialist, and there in a drug yard in Charlotte Street I saw a school friend in a terrible state, horribly enslaved until his untimely death from the mistress of that yard.
There must be a national policy and programme to relocate the roaming legions of drug addicts, and to interface with the hundreds of families at their wits end about what to do. Rehabilitation cannot be a democratic process; it must be enforced in a civilized way. From my knocking on doors I’ve learnt that there is a small group of people who understand. I have learnt much from them, they know what it is necessary to do, but there is no umbrella organization to facilitate the necessary actions.
This young government obviously has to repair the tremendous human devastation of the last, and be careful with the pretenders and ‘shut buttons’ so as to do this cost effectively. At ACDA I initiated an information data Facebook Page called RESCU. We did one TV presentation and the afterflow of parents and concerned citizens who reached out was alarming. Many had dark stories for which we could offer no help, or point in no direction within their circumstances. The responsible human thing has to be done.
Yours faithfully,
Barrington Braithwaite
