Bahamas: Marijuana Use And Cultivation On The Rise

A noted rise in the cultivation and teen usage of marijuana in the Bahamas is prompting government officials to begin surveys once again in schools to find out how many youth are involved in the soliciting of illegal drugs and drug abuse.

According to Deputy Director Designate of the Anti-Drug Secretariat Terrance Fountain, studies in The Bahamas have shown that marijuana is the drug of choice by far, for teenage senior high school youth ­ an issue he claims that has far reaching social implications far beyond high school.

In a recent interview with The Bahama Journal Mr. Fountain said that though The Bahamas has been regarded generally as a transit country for illegal drugs, he added that the cultivation of marijuana in recent times has gone up.

He said that this calls for great concern seeing that marijuana is proven to be the most popular illegal drug for teenagers and young men.

"While the last school drug survey was done in 2002 I don't suspect much would have changed in terms of experimentation with marijuana which by far is the drug of choice within our schools and among our young people," Mr. Fountain said.

He said that a high school drug survey is currently being organized and prepared for the coming fall school semester as many young people in schools are at risk to the drug.

Mr. Fountain who has specific responsibility for the National Drug Observatory, the statistics research and information arm of the Anti-Drug Secretariat, said that the issue of drug abuse cannot be properly addressed until proper research is done on the topic.

He said that from the last school drug survey it was discovered that between 15 per cent and 20 per cent of young people in The Bahamas had experimented with marijuana at least once in their lifetime.

He said that even within the school arena, some populations of students are more susceptible for marijuana use than others.

"We can't paint everyone with a broad brush, if this is a population that is more susceptible than our activities and efforts need to be directed towards that group.

"Not ignoring the others but putting the focus where the focus should be. As it is right now, it is more amongst males and older male young people," he said.

He added that the gender ratio of males to females going into The College of the Bahamas is also directly related to this occurrence.

Mr. Fountain said that the need for more drug research in The Bahamas is rising and added that his responsibility will be to supply information needed by the government and various other organized bodies.

"There will be a need for indicators at the national level to give an indication of where we ( The Bahamas ) are in our efforts in the fight against drugs. And that will put us in a position where we can plan more appropriately.

"We can assist the policy makers and it will put us in a position where we can monitor and evaluate and determine how effective we ( The Bahamas ) will be in the fight against drugs," Mr. Fountain said.

Mr. Fountain said that only when proper research is put into perspective will officials see whether or not anti-drug efforts in The Bahamas are assisting in the fight against illegal drugs.

He said that only then will the answers to many questions come such as: "What is going on with our students? Are the anti-drug efforts taking place in our schools bearing fruit? Is the proportion of people who experiment with drugs for the first time up or down? What proportion of those people who experiment will go on to continue to use drugs?"

Mr. Fountain said that one of the questions he asked the young people in the past surveys was 'where do you get your information form?'

He said that from the responses, he found that the older young people get, the more they learn about drugs from friends and get information on drug use from the Internet and other sources.