An­na-Lisa Paul

The high in­ci­dence of peo­ple be­ing ad­dict­ed to le­gal drugs in T&T are alarm­ing and has prompt­ed the Min­istry of Health to be­gin for­mu­lat­ing a na­tion­al al­co­hol pol­i­cy to re­view the ad­ver­tis­ing and mar­ket­ing of al­co­holic bev­er­ages to the pub­lic.Mak­ing the an­nounce­ment yes­ter­day, Health Min­ster Dr Fuad Khan said the re­sults of a re­cent sur­vey on sub­stance abuse and ad­dic­tion were re­spon­si­ble for the lat­est move.

Speak­ing with re­porters fol­low­ing an awards cer­e­mo­ny at the Na­tion­al Al­co­hol and Drug Pre­ven­tion Pro­gramme (Nadapp) Con­fer­ence Room, Aber­crom­by Street, Port-of-Spain, Khan said:

"The high in­ci­dence of young peo­ple abus­ing le­gal drugs has caused the min­istry to re­view its poli­cies."We are pro­duc­ing a na­tion­al al­co­hol pol­i­cy which is be­ing done right now to look at cur­tail­ing the sale of al­co­hol to young peo­ple."

Khan said the pol­i­cy would be done much in the same way as the to­bac­co pol­i­cy was done and which led to the To­bac­co Con­trol Act of 2009, which sought to pre­vent to­bac­co use by chil­dren, reg­u­late to­bac­co use by in­di­vid­u­als, en­hance pub­lic aware­ness of the haz­ards of to­bac­co use and en­sure in­di­vid­u­als were pro­vid­ed with in­for­ma­tion to make more ful­ly-in­formed de­ci­sions about us­ing to­bac­co.Asked if a crack­down was loom­ing, Khan ex­plained:

"It is not a crack­down but rather a pol­i­cy to look at the method of ad­ver­tis­ing to young peo­ple, mak­ing it look as though it is an ex­ot­ic prod­uct and chang­ing that type of mar­ket­ing to one that shows there is a pos­si­bil­i­ty of dan­gers as­so­ci­at­ed with it. That is the type of pol­i­cy we want."

Khan's com­ments were in keep­ing with Nadapp's 2014 theme of an­ti-vi­o­lence and sub­stance abuse.Part­ner­ing with Nadapp for the third con­sec­u­tive year to host the an­nu­al ca­lyp­so com­pe­ti­tion, the Health Min­is­ter said he was heart­ened by this year's theme as he ques­tioned why young peo­ple were choos­ing to abuse both le­gal and il­le­gal sub­stances.

Claim­ing that "ad­dic­tion is a dis­ease," Khan said an in­crease in the sta­tis­tics–of young peo­ple in this coun­try, to drugs and al­co­hol–had cre­at­ed a psy­cho­log­i­cal and emo­tion­al de­pen­dence in ad­dicts, as well as neg­a­tive­ly im­pact­ing their fam­i­lies.Seek­ing to un­der­stand what mo­ti­vat­ed ad­dicts, Khan said they, of­ten­times, did not un­der­stand why they be­haved the way they did.He re­vealed it was some­times due to fear, shame or some oth­er emo­tion­al con­di­tion that peo­ple re­sort­ed to sub­stance abuse to numb their pain.

Ap­peal­ing to par­ents and guardians to be vig­i­lant, Khan said: "We are los­ing a lot of our young and old peo­ple be­cause of sub­stance abuse to le­gal drugs."Telling the young­sters at the gath­er­ing there were many peo­ple in jail and oth­er in­sti­tu­tions be­cause of their ad­dic­tion to both le­gal and il­le­gal sub­stances, Khan urged every­one to get back on the right path and to re­frain from abus­ing or be­com­ing de­pen­dent on pre­scrip­tion drugs and oth­er items, such as al­co­hol and to­bac­co.

Con­tact­ed yes­ter­day and asked to re­spond to the na­tion­al al­co­hol pol­i­cy be­ing for­mu­lat­ed, of­fi­cials from An­gos­tu­ra and Carib Brew­ery said they would wait un­til there was an of­fi­cial pol­i­cy an­nounce­ment be­fore com­ment­ing.Cop­ping first place for her ca­lyp­so in the an­ti-sub­stance abuse cat­e­go­ry was Rae-Ann Guer­ra of the San Juan North Sec­ondary School with her song ti­tled One Touch.She al­so re­ceived two oth­er awards from Nadapp and the North East­ern Po­lice Di­vi­sion (NEPD) for most out­stand­ing per­former.

Fer­di­nand Smith, of Swa­ha Col­lege, placed sec­ond, while Nao­mi Vial­va, of Ari­ma Cen­tral Gov­ern­ment School, placed third and Garfield Ryan, of Barataria South Sec­ondary, placed fourth.Nadapp has been col­lab­o­rat­ing with NEPD to host the com­pe­ti­tion for the past three years, al­though the pro­gramme was launched in 2002.It was pre­vi­ous­ly un­der the aus­pices of the Min­istry of Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment but has been moved to the Min­istry of Health as lo­cal au­thor­i­ties in­crease ef­forts to com­bat ad­dic­tion.