By KEILE CAMPBELL
kcampbell@tribunemedia.net
US Charge d’Affaires Usha Pitts said she hopes cooperation through the Northern Caribbean Security Summit can lead to more multi-national narcotic initiatives such as Operation Bahamas Turks and Caicos (OPBAT), which has significantly hindered the transit of drugs in Bahamian waters.
She spoke during yesterday's opening session of the third Northern Caribbean Security Summit (NOCSS) hosted by the Ministry of National Security at the British Colonial Hotel.
“We need to be able to share information," she said. "We need to be able to contribute to joint investigations. All of this stuff has to evolve, has to modernise, has to improve, and that's what the whole point of the NOCSS is."
She said although OPBAT is a success story, more can be done.
OPBAT, she said, "doesn’t encompass all of our other issues, like, what about guns? What about migrants? How are we countering all these other threats?
"It's important that we kind of expand our vision of what security means in the northern Caribbean.
“Right now, OPBAT, it's a great operation, don't get me wrong, but it's not doing everything that we need it to do, so I’m looking forward to a future where we have greater prosecutions, greater extraditions, vetted units, closer integration between judicial authorities and law enforcement authorities between The Bahamas, United States, and Turks & Caicos."
The two-day summit will involve discussions about countering transnational organised crime, firearms, drug trafficking organisations and other illicit trafficking.
Comments
carltonr61 1 month ago
In order for Pitts and the USA Government to be real to The Bahamas, they must realize our economic climate and how we shiver from their deadly tourist warnings. Our crime statistical breakdown involves personal issues murder resolved through murder. And never never ever threatened visitors as we are a 7 by 21 family feud, not even gang related and organized from a definitive head leader. USA intelligence needs to take control of international press releases related to the breath we breathe and the waters we sell. Any two families could ignite in a spike in crime. USA needs to get real with their statistical revelations and depuctions filter of Bahamian crime.
Further it is a crime that The Bahamas has not falken in line that the vast majority or Americans critically fear our Cannabis laws and we are loosing countless millions of North American and European tourists because of this. The Bahamadustbstop posing as a terminal threat to guests where their homelands call cannabis home.
ThisIsOurs 1 month ago
If we'd stop killing each other in drive by shootings on public roads with 7 year old boys getting shot in the cross fire I'm betting the US wouldnt put out travel advisories. Just a guess, but they might still warn Americans about the danger of sunburn.
We dont need anymore spaced out children. Some say they're using it anyway. The risk takers are using it, if marijuana becomes legal people who wouldnt have touched an illegal substance will be emboldened to try and some will not have good results. It's the exact same thing we experienced with illegal gambling which is now devastating the inner city. But someone getting very rich off misery.
carltonr61 1 month ago
The Medical Association of The Bahamas (online)lists Cannabis as a major supplement in safe pain control, and a host of emotional, mental and physiological ailments only awaiting Government legalization. Gambling is ranked DSM-5 along with cocaine substance addiction although it is a behavior. Cannibis directly affects cranial nerve 2 all things related to eye relaxation. Cannibis also immediately have an effect on chronic deadly stress because it causes the release of Dopermine and serotonin as a psychotropic property on THC. but also, for safe pain suppression due to cancers chewing into the nerves. Doctors are forced to give patients opioids, all of which are addictive with the potential of death.
ThisIsOurs 1 month ago
Doctors arent forced to give patients opioids. Opioids serve a medicine purpose. Theyre more potent than marijuana and they give patients with severe pain some ease when no other drugs are found to. They are pain relief drugs of last resort.
Nobody argues whether marijuana or its by products have some medical value. So does fentanyl and the other opioids. But what happened in the US when noone was paying attention? first hundreds of thousands developed an addiction then drug dealers capitalized on the addictive qualities and hundreds of thousands destroyed their lives and many of them died. It wasnt the drug that was the problem it was the monitoring and its too late to roll it back.
My concern about this marijuana thing is we fool ourselves if we believe we have any systems in place to control the potential gang activity around farms and assault on farms, the illegal distribution, the quality or the fallout in the inner city. But Its clear that they will do what they want as Chester Cooper said since they in charge, let noone say who could have seen this.
carltonr61 1 month ago
Historically, you are describing just the very scenario that exists today from the 1970s. Not wanting to engage in politics but Cannabis needs regulation and education to get rid of it being available exclusively to criminal sellers and making users all criminals. This exclusively criminal muti-billion dollar industry has created international drug lords that damaged every nation, which lead to Uruguay Cannibas decriminalization then murders stopped.
carltonr61 1 month ago
According to United Nations Office on Drugs And Crime 2022 five book addition: based on true data evidence from nations that legslized Cannabis there was no rise in crime, that government was documenting user sales evidence revealed that older users age 50 to 70 skyrocketed but when questioned found out that they were using for decades. In Canada, due to legalization windows opened up on opportunities to assist and educate. Pregnant women, through legal declaration at clinics suddenly were abkecto warn mothers if Cannabis impact on the developing Fetus. Lije a vehicle gas gauge dial, Cannabis has a trajectory of effects which must be looked at individually as at each stage of life creates a different impact. There are so many streetvpeople because the potency of Cannabis was 3% in the 70s 70 early 80s, which has since risen to 15% normal and through chemical extraction up to 99%.
carltonr61 1 month ago
The PLP's attempt to legalize Cannibas is designed with global solid evidenced based safe data experience. According to the United Nations, as with The Bahamas, all nations that legalized Cannibas were not virgin territories but already had a pre existing endemic use among the population with a solid saturation of users and availability. Legalization only allows for pre existing data to be accumulated. Legalization opened up the patients to reveal personal healtth concerns among smokers and to address academics, warnings and health concerns. Medical institutions here in The Bahamas are still to request patient information "do you gamble do you use Cannibas and by which means of consumption?"
Porcupine 1 month ago
Ask the U.S. to stop producing so many guns. Their War on Drugs failed miserably too, right? They bombed a lot of countries and killed a lot of people, but the drugs keep on, hey? Stopping guns from entering The Bahamas is also a fool's errand. Just like prohibition. If there is a demand, someone will supply. Without prohibition, and the drug trade, where would The Bahamas be now? How many lawyers made millions representing drug dealers? How many Bahamian families became prosperous during prohibition? Instead of focusing on long term social solutions to all of our problems, we continue to use the failed policies of an iron fist. How many decades does this need to go on before we use our brains and do the research about what works and what doesn't? Clearly, we shun using our brains and want to use a police force that has never been known for their intellectual aptitude. Thus, we continue to get failure after failure in so-called law enforcement. But, someone is making tons of money on guns, bullets, tasers, bullet proof vests, new armoured vehicles, and the latest high tech gear that they can then sell to power hungry little men who beat up and bully those not wearing a police uniform. Now, they are jailing people who protest and speak out. I know what I worry about. I worry about the power hungry politicians who have continually failed at governing, have no leadership skills, no vision, no moral fortitude, but have done a great job of enriching themselves. On taxpayer money The secret is out people. If Haiti was not destroyed by foreign interests, the U.S. chief among them, Haitians, like all people, would not be leaving their homes. If there was not the extreme disparities in wealth, we would have much less drug use, alcohol abuse, domestic abuse and gambling. These problems are almost all policy decisions. We can listen to the professors, or we can continue to listen to the police and pastors and politicians. I heard that in the U.S. if you score too high on your intelligence test they will not admit you to the police academy. They only want obedience. No thinking. Just obedience. From the looks of it, we use the same criteria for our politicians, police and pastors here. How many decades do we keep wondering why we are failing and then continue to double down on the same failed policies? What we have failed most miserably at, is educating our people. From top to bottom.
ThisIsOurs 1 month ago
So this week or maybe last, Oprah revealed that she's using a weight loss drug and she spoke of all the harassment and bullying she endured because of her weight. Then she said something puzzling, that obesity is a disease. I disagree, that's my opinion. If you put an obese person on a desert island their obesity will quickly fade, they no longer have access to the addictive substance. You cannot do the same with a person with cancer, they would die, because cancer is a disease, it exists even when you change the external environment. Sure the argument could continue that addiction is a mental disease. OK.
But I feel the same way about the obesity is a disease argument as I do about the if they didnt produce guns we wouldnt kill people. Guns certainly make it easier to kill people. But without guns we'd still have drug dealers, we'd still have turf wars, we'd still have cars and road rage, we'd still have illegal immigration stretching our resources, we'd still have corruption in high places siphoning the limited resources we do have and leaving a population in misery, a population on the edge and closer to anarchy. Guns aren't the problem.Cuba for example has access to the same gun market
The problem is in us.
Secondly society is society because a body of people get together under some rules. It doesnt matter what the rules are there will be someone who feels I could make so much money if this rule didn't exist and someone bold enough to buck the rule. It's up to designated people in society to stop those people. We could argue about the methods used to prevent illegal activity, but illegal activity should always be stopped because it's illegal (and of course I'm not referring to the slave running away illegal laws)
ThisIsOurs 1 month ago
As to your statement of only dumb people being allowed into the police force. I highly doubt its true especially in first world nations. Because they need intelligent people to work in labs, forensics and as detectives. Is it a fact that less educated people opt for the beat patrol, yes because that's a game of numbers, they need a job and people with PHds aren't running to compete for those jobs yet.
Haiti is in the problem it's in not because of external forces but first because of geography. It's not anything anybody caused. Geography put it in the path of multiple hurricanes and geography subjected it to devastating earthquakes. Hurricanes and earthquakes are both a challenge to infrastructural development, especially for a dev ed loping nation
The second problem Haiti has is corruption. All homemade. Corruption soaks up all investment dollars for the people at the top and leaves the poor wondering when is the help coming?
Its convenient for them and others to point fingers all around (the latest thing I heard was the UN brought cholera to Haiti. I'm assuming they means the slums of Haiti with poor sanitation and limited access to clean water, made exponentislly worse after an earthquake.. ok) but their major problems are a result of those two factors and this current crisis stems directly from corruption, all the money soaked up, prices rise in the vacuum and corrupt forces kill a president.
I do agree with you on one thing. We do need to use our brains more and I mean that, we are on the slippery slope to Haiti
carltonr61 1 month ago
Haha.
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