Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar says her re­cent pub­lic state­ments on pornog­ra­phy, gam­bling and mar­i­jua­na are not off-the-cuff re­marks but rather the use of her po­lit­i­cal plat­form to raise is­sues she would have liked to have dis­cussed at the yet to hap­pen crime talks with the gov­ern­ment.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia last week Per­sad-Bisses­sar said, “These were is­sues that I had hoped to bring up in the an­ti-crime talks. We can­not on­ly dis­cuss de­lays of jus­tice, bail re­form and de­tec­tion rates as these ap­ply to af­ter the crime has been com­mit­ted. We have to dis­cuss is­sues that cause crime.”

She said her ad­vo­ca­cy for those is­sues al­so echoes the con­cerns of par­ents who have been seek­ing her as­sis­tance.

“I am con­tact­ed dai­ly by cit­i­zens about var­i­ous is­sues. The gam­bling and mar­i­jua­na abuse has been a re­cur­ring prob­lem that is be­ing iden­ti­fied by my con­stituents,” the Op­po­si­tion Leader said.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar has called for the le­gal age for gam­bling and mar­i­jua­na use to in­crease from 18 to 25. She ex­plained why she made the call.

“We have moth­ers com­ing to the of­fice for food sup­port be­cause their hus­bands gam­bled and lost the en­tire salary as soon as he got paid. Al­so we have a lot of peo­ple ask­ing for sup­port to find help for their chil­dren who are ad­dict­ed to mar­i­jua­na. The prob­lem is not out of hand. The mar­i­jua­na that orig­i­nates from South Amer­i­ca is preva­lent in Trinidad and is laced with high­ly ad­dic­tive sub­stances.”

The Op­po­si­tion Leader said she is al­so in­un­dat­ed with re­ports that these is­sues are con­tribut­ing to more re­ports of men­tal ill­ness and vi­o­lent be­hav­iour.

With re­spect to her con­cerns about pornog­ra­phy ad­dic­tion and its links to child sex­u­al abuse, she said, “I am al­so very con­cerned with the over sex­u­al­i­sa­tion of chil­dren by adults. Chil­dren are learn­ing about sex­u­al ed­u­ca­tion through pornog­ra­phy and adults are ex­ploit­ing this. This is con­tribut­ing to sex­u­al crimes.”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said those who do not sup­port her opin­ion on these mat­ters are free to dis­agree. But she ques­tioned, “which par­ent will give their child mar­i­jua­na to smoke when he or she turns 18? Which par­ent tells that 18-year-old child to go and gam­ble? Who wants their fam­i­ly mem­bers to be ad­dict­ed to pornog­ra­phy?”

Mean­while asked if she still be­lieves the an­ti-crime talks will hap­pen, she re­spond­ed, “Hope­ful­ly it will. More and more stake­hold­ers are ask­ing to be in­volved. This is a great sign.”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar had promised to hold her own crime talks with her sup­port­ers dur­ing the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) week­ly meet­ings.