President Dr. Irfaan Ali has sounded the alarm over what he described as a troubling increase in the importation of marijuana into Guyana, originating from countries traditionally known for strong border and port security, including the United States and Canada.
Delivering the feature address at the opening of the 39th Association of Caribbean Commissioners of Police (ACCP) Conference on Monday in Georgetown, President Ali questioned how such illicit shipments continue to penetrate supposedly secure systems.
“We are seeing more and more marijuana imported into our country from borders that should be very strong. But why is this the case?” the Head of State asked, adding that the drug is being smuggled through unconventional means.
“People are challenging strong ports and security enforcement areas like in the United States and Canada, taking the risk to put marijuana in barrels and exporting from there to here,” he noted.
According to President Ali, the situation reflects broader policy failures, not in the Caribbean, but in jurisdictions where marijuana has been decriminalised or legalised.
He argued that the liberalisation of cannabis laws in several developed countries has inadvertently spurred an illicit transnational trade in the substance, with criminals taking advantage of looser controls.
“There is a policy we have to go back to,” President Ali asserted. “The freeing up of marijuana in societies takes away the risk of having it, reduces the cost, it is then compressed and comes back through market-based mechanisms back into the region and back into our countries.”
He stressed that these developments are not coincidental. “This is a direct result of a policy not related to the region, but a policy that creates an opportunity for criminals and criminality,” he said.
In light of these growing threats, the President urged regional governments and law enforcement bodies to remain proactive and interconnected in their response.
“We cannot live in isolation,” he warned. “We have to look at all these new policies extra-regionally and understand the implications for security, and then feed that back into the policymaking matrix.”
The ACCP conference, which brings together senior police officials from over 20 Caribbean countries, is being held under the theme: “United in Action, Transformed in Purpose: Building an Integrated Caribbean Security Architecture.”
The week-long event, aimed at strengthening regional security collaboration, concludes on Saturday.
