Akash Sama­roo

Lead Ed­i­tor—Pol­i­tics

akash.sama­roo@cnc3.co.tt

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has crit­i­cised the Op­po­si­tion and In­de­pen­dent bench­es af­ter they failed to sup­port leg­is­la­tion that rais­es the le­gal ages for al­co­hol, to­bac­co, cannabis and gam­bling. She again re­ferred to the Pres­i­dent’s nine ap­point­ed sen­a­tors as “scum­bags.”

Her com­ments fol­lowed the pas­sage of the Mis­cel­la­neous Pro­vi­sions (Al­co­hol, Cannabis, Dan­ger­ous Drugs, Gam­bling and To­bac­co) Bill, 2026, in the Sen­ate on Tues­day night. No Op­po­si­tion or in­de­pen­dent sen­a­tor vot­ed in favour.

All 15 Gov­ern­ment sen­a­tors sup­port­ed the bill. Twelve sen­a­tors vot­ed against it, while three in­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors—Dr Mar­lene Attzs, Fran­cis Lewis and Ali­cia Pauline Lalite-Et­ti­enne—ab­stained.

In a state­ment af­ter the vote, Per­sad-Bisses­sar ac­cused the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment of fail­ing to sup­port mea­sures to pro­tect young peo­ple.

“The PNM’s an­swer to pro­tect­ing our youth is giv­ing them mar­i­jua­na to smoke and low-pay­ing, me­nial wel­fare jobs,” she said.

She al­so crit­i­cised the In­de­pen­dent bench, ac­cus­ing its mem­bers of “use­less bray­ing” dur­ing the de­bate be­fore vot­ing against the bill. She called the nine in­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors the “scum­bag Pres­i­dent’s sen­a­tors,” de­scrib­ing them as a “loath­some and grotesque group of per­sons.”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar linked their po­si­tion on the bill to the in­de­pen­dents’ ear­li­er op­po­si­tion to the Gov­ern­ment’s amend­ments to the Chil­dren’s Life Fund Act.

The bill rais­es the min­i­mum age for pur­chas­ing al­co­hol and to­bac­co from 18 to 21. It sets 25 as the min­i­mum age for cannabis pos­ses­sion and use with­in legal­ly per­mit­ted quan­ti­ties, and for gam­bling.

The Gov­ern­ment says the changes are in­tend­ed to re­duce harm among young peo­ple, in­clud­ing health and so­cial con­se­quences as­so­ci­at­ed with sub­stance use and gam­bling.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said her Gov­ern­ment would con­tin­ue to pass leg­is­la­tion it be­lieves ben­e­fits law-abid­ing cit­i­zens and pro­tects young peo­ple.

The bill will now be sent to Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo for as­sent. The Gov­ern­ment plans to bring it in­to op­er­a­tion in ear­ly 2027.