Dear Editor,

In the traditional matrix where tiny Jamaica must endure the overwhelming power and hubris of the mighty USA, we need to adopt smart strategies. If we don’t, the US State Department will continue to use the drug problem as the big stick to keep us and other Third-World countries in distress (“we have the dirt on you” !), while many US states turn a blind eye to drug growing and trading. For example, some counties in California report that more than 60 per cent of local trade comprises marijuana.

Mexico has just boldly passed laws which are already dramatically reducing previously high levels of crime and violence associated with the consumption and trading in drugs. These laws were passed just last year with the acknowledgement that drug consumption and abuse are matters to be fought with education and medication rather than by law enforcement, which creates more crime and violence for the society.

Mexico made the obvious case that it is the strong demand for drugs in America which creates the supply from their country and is responsible for despoiling their society with crime and violence. Mexico co-operated and fully communicated these changes to the American government. Yet America continues its puritanical, myopic, unsustainable policies of treating drug consumption as a primary law-and-order problem.

It is time for Jamaica to come together with regional countries and adopt the laws recently passed by Mexico which have dramatically reduced their high crime rate associated with citizens’ drug use.

Until the old laws which govern the use of ganja are changed, this hypocritical and unworkable approach to the problem will persist in this country.

LA Bert Ramsay

florissano1@live.com