Bdos: Desperation of drug mules

What is baffling is that although there has been a marked increase in “drug mules” being held with the illegal drugs, more keep coming. Perhaps it is a sign that some “drug mules” might still be getting through in spite of any success in nabbing others.

It has long been felt that most of the “drug mules” are themselves drug addicts who are desperate enough to try anything, even putting their lives at risk, by swallowing packets of illegal drugs, not only to get a monetary reward but to satisfy their addiction. 

[Leroy] Kerr, however, had a different motive for the court to consider. It did not help him avoid imprisonment but it is worthy of recall.

He claimed that life is so hard and violent in Jamaica that he had jumped at the offer of getting US$400 to bring the drugs to Barbados. Expressing shame over what had now befallen him, he also blamed the increasingly violent situation in his country, which as he put it, “drives us every different way,” and told the court of how tough it was to  have two children and a wife and having to go to bed hungry, or with only $150 “to last for three weeks”.

Now his family will be totally destitute.