ROAD TOWN, Tortola, BVI - Speaking on his radio programme ‘The People’s Business’ Wednesday evening May 4, 2011, Mr. Rhymer said society needed to find ways to effectively tackle crime and salvage the young people from heading down a road of crime and violence.
One of his suggestions was that society should consider the example of the “Prohibition Era” when the sale and consumption of alcohol were criminalised.
“The facts are that we have to look at some of the things criminalised and I think the time has come for us to look at ways that we can take the profit from the drugs trade. People want to make quick money…profitability makes it and will continue to make it easy for people to make quick money.”
Mr. Rhymer is of the opinion that as long as big profits exists in the drug trade, society would have a problem and noted that when the United States outlawed the sale and consumption of alcohol in the 1830s a lot of gangs and crime rose up because people wanted their whiskey at all costs and persons capitalised on the demand and were not afraid to take risks because of the profits.
The talk show host and former educator, however, did not specify which drugs and neither did he suggest how exactly the profits from the drug trade could be taken away.
Mr. Rhymer also said some the gangs that existed in the region are not necessarily the users of the product or bent on creating havoc in society but they are the protectors of certain elements of the trade. He noted for example that when a violation is committed in the trade persons would not go to the Police station to make a report but would sort to other means of getting their “so called justice”.
A caller to the programme noted that while he was not in objection to Mr. Rhymer’s suggestion, he had some concerns with the addictive nature of drugs and how that in itself would drive the demand and ultimately the profitability of the trade.
Article taken from Virgin Islands News Online - http://www.virginislandsnewsonline.com
British Virgin Islands News