Government needs to increase the age limit for marijuana use and gambling from 18 years to 25 years.
The call was issued by Opposition Leader, Kamla Persad-Bissessar, who also urged parents to join the lobby in order to see this change made.
She said marijuana addiction and gambling are wrecking T&T’s youths and driving crime.
Persad-Bissessar made the call at the UNC’s Pavement Report meeting in St Joseph on Monday night.
“This Government legalised marijuana without implementing all the necessary controls. Marijuana abuse is damaging the brains of our young people. This is not ‘Kamla say so’, this is science. My government gave your children laptops and scholarships. Rowley’s Government gave them marijuana to smoke,” she said.
She added, “The human brain finishes developing and maturing in the mid-to-late 20s. The prefrontal cortex is one of the last parts to mature and is responsible for self-awareness, the capacity for complex planning, problem solving, learning and memory, personality expression, decision-making, and modulation of social behaviour.
“After age 25, when the brain is finished developing, you can go ahead and choose to do what you want. But until that age, we have to protect our young people.”
Persad-Bissessar added, “This Government legalised marijuana without implementing all necessary controls. There are no legal dispensaries and consistent monitoring of the quality or origin of supply. In place of legal dispensaries, people are buying on street corners from drug pushers. The marijuana is often laced with cocaine. There’s no consistency in the THC levels. That’s what gangs are fighting for: control of these corners. This Government created this problem.”
She said gangs are also fighting for control of gambling machines and illegal gambling.
“The gangs tax bar owners for all those slot machines in St Joseph bars. Owners can’t report to the police because the police ‘taxing’ them also. Since 2016, the Finance Minister promised a suitable gambling regulatory system with appropriate controls. After seven years—nothing!”
Persad-Bissessar said the only people who would be against raising the age limit from 18 to 25 years would be the criminals who benefit.