Nothing poses greater treats to civil society in the beautiful twin-island Federation of St. Kitts-Nevis than the drug problem, and nothing exemplifies the powerlessness of the government more than that. That is the magnitude of the danger drug abuse and drug trafficking hold for our country.
It is a many layered danger.
At base is the human destruction implicit in drug addiction, but implicit also is the individuals and systems by the sheer enormity of the inducements of the illegal drug trade in such a relatively poor society. On top of all this lie the implications for governance itself, at the hands of both external agencies engaged in international interdiction and the drug barons themselves; the so called ‘dons’ and ‘big shots’ knocking glass with certain officials who threaten governance from within.
From a recent survey done in the Federation about the dangers of illegal drugs the findings are that there is acute awareness that in St. Kitts and Nevis they spell disaster for citizens, institutions, values and the fabric of society itself, and there is concern that the menace is steadily growing.
Occasionally, during the interviews, there is a disposition not to talk about it. Understandably, perhaps, is the prevailing sense of helplessness in responding to it in any meaningful way. Sometimes, however, this silence is with a view to preserving the image that all is well in the Tourism Industry which has replaced the Federation’s dependency on the now defunct Sugar Industry.
Such reticence, however, only compounds the problem. Thus, it runs the risk of shading into acquiescence and making matters worse. I believe that the drug problem in this country has to be acknowledged and confronted for the monstrous evil and the pernicious cancer that it is. We have been heartened that our government has taken courageous steps in doing so, despite all the limitations that circumstances place on their efforts. In the result, however, the situation today is worse than it was, compounded with the fact that we are facing this world economic crisis; and it threatens to undermine all the progress that the good people of this Federation call for in civil and political, no less than economic, social and cultural life.
Many of the problems of this Federation, in relation to the illicit trade in and abuse of narcotics, are not different in type from the difficulties experience elsewhere globally. The essential difference is that our country is smaller and so the problems have a greater impact, because the population is smaller and far fewer resources are available to meet the awesome challenges posed by the narcotics trade.
I think that the strategy our country needs to adopt will require substantial and multi-source help in putting it in place. The countries whose populations provide the market for these drugs owe St. Kitts-Nevis an obligation to helping us rid our society of the consequential evils that befall us from the drugs trade as it reaches out to that market.
But, they have an interest as well in protecting their own societies from the menace of illegal drugs by assisting that multilateral process so that whatever else is done in producer counties St. Kitts-Nevis is eliminated as a point of trans-shipment. If it ceases to be such an entrepôt, we will have gone a good deal of the way in ridding ourselves of both the ills of drug abuse and the corruption of our society.
