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Monday, July 7, 2025

Hinds orders cops: Mash up them drug blocks

by

Jesse Ramdeo
1383 days ago
20210922
 Social Development and Services Minister Donna Cox, left, National Security Minister Fitzgerald Hinds and Case Care Management Chief Probation Officer, Sintra Maharaj, during the launch of the Case Care Management Pilot project at Ansa Building, corner Queen and Henry Streets, Port-of-Spain, yesterday.

Social Development and Services Minister Donna Cox, left, National Security Minister Fitzgerald Hinds and Case Care Management Chief Probation Officer, Sintra Maharaj, during the launch of the Case Care Management Pilot project at Ansa Building, corner Queen and Henry Streets, Port-of-Spain, yesterday.

M.Gonzales

Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Fitzger­ald Hinds has made a stern ap­peal for the po­lice ser­vice to crack down on drug blocks around the coun­try. Min­is­ter Hinds made the com­ment on Wednes­day as he de­liv­ered the fea­ture ad­dress at the launch of the Case Care Man­age­ment pi­lot project.

The ini­tia­tive pro­motes al­ter­na­tives to in­car­cer­a­tion for in­di­vid­u­als with sub­stance use dis­or­ders fac­ing mi­nor or non-vi­o­lent drug-re­lat­ed or oth­er crim­i­nal charges. The pro­gramme has been iden­ti­fied as hav­ing the po­ten­tial to ben­e­fit the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem by pro­vid­ing treat­ment to re­ha­bil­i­tate of­fend­ers and rein­te­grate them in­to so­ci­ety.

Il­lic­it nar­co-traf­fick­ing has long been linked to fu­elling crime in this coun­try, Min­is­ter Hinds said the po­lice must do more to com­bat the scourge of drug blocks in com­mu­ni­ties.

Ac­cord­ing to him, “There are ob­vi­ous drug blocks in Trinidad and To­ba­go where every cit­i­zen in­clud­ing our tod­dlers see on a dai­ly ba­sis, the lines of af­flict­ed hu­man be­ings go­ing to get their fix and go back. In ad­di­tion to that, the po­lice ser­vice has a role to in­ter­vene, to in­ter­dict and to, let me put it in col­lo­qui­al terms, mash up them drug blocks, it’s as sim­ple as that.”

Min­is­ter Hinds as­sured that de­spite re­ports point­ing to this coun­try’s porous bor­ders as be­ing re­spon­si­ble for the con­tin­ued drug trade, it re­mains high on his min­istry’s radar.

“This two-year pi­lot project is be­ing launched at a time both time­ly and op­por­tune and is be­ing launched at a time when coun­tries all over the globe bat­tle dai­ly with the tran­ship­ment of il­lic­it nar­cotics, hu­man traf­fick­ing. For that rea­son, bor­der con­trol and man­age­ment is a high pri­or­i­ty of the gov­ern­ment of Trinidad and To­ba­go.”

The Case Care Man­age­ment Project is a col­lab­o­ra­tion be­tween the Pro­ba­tion Ser­vices Di­vi­sion and the In­ter-Amer­i­can Drug Abuse Con­trol Com­mis­sion. The sys­tem seeks to en­hance the co­or­di­na­tion amongst the jus­tice, health and so­cial sys­tems to as­sist with peo­ple’s re­cov­ery.

ES-CI­CAD Ex­ec­u­tive Sec­re­tary Adam Namm said the project was aimed at pro­vid­ing an all-em­brac­ing sys­tem of care for peo­ple with sub­stance abuse dis­or­ders.

“It will pro­vide the need­ed in­ter­ven­tions to fa­cil­i­tate the most pos­i­tive out­comes from par­tic­i­pat­ing drug of­fend­ers in the ar­eas of re­duced sub­stance use, in­creased pos­i­tive func­tion­ing in all ar­eas of their lives and a re­duc­tion in re­cidi­vism,” Namm said.

So­cial De­vel­op­ment and Fam­i­ly Ser­vices Min­is­ter Don­na Cox al­so ac­knowl­edged the cost-sav­ing ben­e­fits that are as­so­ci­at­ed with the pro­gramme and its abil­i­ty to fur­ther re­duce the coun­try’s pris­ons pop­u­la­tion.


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