Gya: Bartica a drug gateway

President Bharrat Jagdeo on Thursday promised Barticians that the burgeoning drug problem in their community would be stamped out.

Bartica is said to be a major transshipment point for narcotics to the interior and residents want the Guyana Police Force to step up patrols in the area.

Speaking to this newspaper on Thursday, residents said drug traffickers, who usually arrived at Bartica on speedboats and larger vessels, were not subjected to any searches by police officers. One resident said the situation had become more serious as marijuana and cocaine were actually being sold on the streets. Residents raised the issue at a meeting with President Bharrat Jagdeo and Commissioner of Police, Winston Felix, and Jagdeo promised them that it would be dealt with.

A pastor in the community, who requested anonymity, said several young men of the area were now hooked on drugs; some of them were teenagers whose parents had been beseeching him to pray for them. The pastor said smoking marijuana was now so commonplace that some of the youths would walk through the streets smoking the drug in the same way as they would do with a cigarette.

He said the police had to do more to control drug trafficking as drugs were too easily accessible to youths.

The pastor said that apart from selling marijuana in the interior, the traffickers also had ready markets in Brazil and other neighbouring countries. He said he had observed several Brazilians who would usually collect their supplies from the marijuana traffickers and ship them off to their country.

The pastor was confident that if a police checkpoint were to be set up at the Bartica stelling the drug trade would be smashed. "Some-thing has to be done. We can't continue to say that we're going to deal with the matter and nothing is being done."

Is the drug trade of Bartica going to fund terrorists in the Muslim Triangle?