Authorities seek to tighten drug legislation
We’re all familiar with illegal drugs like cocaine, crack, marijuana and even heroin…along with Belize’s roll in their production and distribution. But with new narcotic concoctions appearing in the U.S.A. and Europe almost weekly, it’s not easy for the law enforcement community to keep up. With one secret laboratory already discovered in Corozal, authorities here are finally making an effort to overhaul their old notions–and legislation–about drugs. Jaqueline Woods reports.
There is not much that can be done legally to anyone in the country who misuses industrial chemicals and products to manufacture illicit drugs. According to the Director of the Pharmacy Department in the Ministry of Health, Sharon Sanchez – Anderson, because there is no proper legislation in place, it is difficult to control and prevent such illicit activity.
Sharon Sanchez-Anderson, Director, Pharmacy Department, MOH
“There is only up to a certain point they can go in terms of bringing these people to justice. Failing that, we will always be faced with the situation where we catch people doing these illegal manufacturing and we do not have the legislation and the sanction in place to take them through the full judicial system.”
In addition, Belize is a signatory to three United Nations Conventions including Narcotic Control of 1961, Psychotropic substances control of 1971 and the Precursor Chemical Control of 1988. So far the country has failed to honor its commitment to the 1988 convention, which deals with the illicit traffic of chemical substances.
Sharon Sanchez-Anderson
“Oh, it will give Belize a bad reputation because as I said we are signatories to the Conventions, so it is our commitment to uphold the provisions of those Conventions and in addition to the convention, we also have the regional and hemispheric level of evaluation which is done to through the SECAD multilateral evaluation mechanism to which we are subjected to twice every two years and since its inception back in 2000 and its re-evaluation in 2002, we have failed to enact any legislation on it and the recommendation coming down reiterated the fact that we need to do something about the legislations.”
Sanchez-Anderson says they do not know to what extent people are misusing substances to make illicit drugs but just late last year, authorities discovered a factory they suspect was used to manufacture the date rape drug, ecstasy and there has also been other requests.
Sharon Sanchez-Anderson
“We have had as I said some suspicious requests for importation in large quantity for some of the precursors namely pseudoephdrine that we know can be used in the process of manufacturing ecstasy.”
Today, the ministry of health held a one-day workshop with various stakeholders to start the work to review the laws and improve the process involved in the control and delivery of pharmaceutical health services in Belize.
Sharon Sanchez-Anderson
“Because of Belize geographic location, it is a prime target because if it not even manufacturer here in Belize, Belize is used as a point of transshipment where it would be coming from other countries maybe the U.S. or Europe coming to Belize as a first point and then it is re exported and if we do not have any sort of importation request that has to go through the procedure on terms of you can only bring this into the country if you have x, y and z then everything is free for all that as I said would not go down well with us in terns of our international commitments.”
The participants received information on the number of ways chemicals and other products can be misused. The stakeholders included representatives from the private sector including those persons who deal with the productions of paints, batteries and the ministry of trade who will issue license and concession to people. Jacqueline Woods for News Five.
