JavaScript is disabled in your web browser or browser is too old to support JavaScript. Today almost all web pages contain JavaScript, a scripting programming language that runs on visitor's web browser. It makes web pages functional for specific purposes and if disabled for some reason, the content or the functionality of the web page can be limited or unavailable.

Monday, August 18, 2025

Kamla raises drinking limit

... Legal age for consumption of alcohol to be increased to 21 years; no gambling/smoking ganja under 25 years

by

41 days ago
20250708
Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar greets a supporter on her arrival at the party’s Monday Night Report at Clarke Road, Penal, last night.

Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar greets a supporter on her arrival at the party’s Monday Night Report at Clarke Road, Penal, last night.

RISHI RAGOONATH

Law will be brought to the Par­lia­ment to raise the le­gal age for gam­bling and mar­i­jua­na use to 25 years and over and al­so in­crease the le­gal age for al­co­hol use to 21 years and old­er.

And Gov­ern­ment is re­view­ing and amend­ing the tax laws re­gard­ing pen­sions, as Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar be­lieves once a per­son reach­es 60 and has been con­tribut­ing to the pen­sion sys­tem for decades, they should no longer be taxed on their re­tire­ment ben­e­fits.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar an­nounced the de­vel­op­ments at last night’s Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) Mon­day Re­port in Pe­nal - first in a se­ries of such meet­ings.

In her first ad­dress re­port­ing to UNC sup­port­ers since the par­ty’s April 28 Gen­er­al Elec­tion vic­to­ry, Per­sad-Bisses­sar de­tailed moves for up­com­ing leg­is­la­tion and oth­er de­vel­op­ments re­gard­ing the ju­di­cia­ry, Bud­get 2026 - and her in­ten­tion to con­test the par­ty’s lead­er­ship elec­tion ahead.

Ac­knowl­edg­ing there is no progress un­less peo­ple feel a pos­i­tive im­pact in their lives and pock­ets, she said, “We’ll make it hap­pen. Progress will take some time, it will re­quire con­sid­er­able ef­fort, and will in­volve mak­ing some tough de­ci­sions to lev­el the play­ing field, but this is what’s need­ed; you don’t want the next five years to be ter­ri­ble as the past ten...”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar an­nounced plans she raised dur­ing the elec­tion cam­paign - the planned in­crease in age to 25 for mar­i­jua­na use and gam­bling, and 21 years for al­co­hol use. Dur­ing the cam­paign, she’d re­peat­ed­ly cit­ed the neg­a­tive ef­fects of mar­i­jua­na us­age on youths and the hav­oc gam­bling ad­dic­tion and al­co­holism cause.

On ex­empt­ing pen­sions from tax, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said, “I be­lieve that once a per­son reach­es 60 and has been con­tribut­ing to the pen­sion sys­tem for decades, they should no longer be taxed on their re­tire­ment ben­e­fits.

“This on­go­ing tax lessens the val­ue of a pen­sion, which is meant to sup­port re­tirees in their lat­er years, and can feel like dou­ble tax­a­tion—pay­ing tax­es both dur­ing work­ing years and in re­tire­ment. These tax­es strain the fi­nances of se­niors, es­pe­cial­ly those liv­ing on fixed or lim­it­ed in­comes, and can be a sig­nif­i­cant source of frus­tra­tion.”

She added, “My Gov­ern­ment will re­view and amend the tax laws re­gard­ing pen­sions to re­flect fair­ness and recog­ni­tion of life­long con­tri­bu­tions paid. Ex­empt­ing pen­sion in­come from tax­es af­ter age 60 is a fair pol­i­cy ad­just­ment that ac­knowl­edges the ser­vice and sac­ri­fices of re­tirees, while al­so strength­en­ing so­cial sup­port for the el­der­ly. This en­sures that those who have con­tributed so much are not un­du­ly bur­dened in their gold­en years.”

Stand-your-ground law in Sep­tem­ber

On stand-your-ground leg­is­la­tion against home in­va­sion, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the Home In­va­sion (Self-De­fence and De­fence of Prop­er­ty) Bill 2025 is draft­ed and ready to be is­sued for con­sul­ta­tion.

“On Thurs­day, it will be pre­sent­ed to Cab­i­net. Na­tion­al con­sul­ta­tions will then be­gin with tar­get­ed com­ple­tion in Ju­ly. We’ll make any nec­es­sary change that comes in. It will be brought to Par­lia­ment when it re­opens in Sep­tem­ber,” she added.

The bill pro­vides that:

A per­son has no du­ty to re­treat when op­er­at­ing in self-de­fence or de­fence of his prop­er­ty; that they may use de­fen­sive force, in­clud­ing dead­ly force, to pro­tect him­self or his prop­er­ty.

The of­fence of home in­va­sion would in­clude the un­law­ful en­try by a home in­vad­er in­to a dwelling house with the in­tent to use force, or threat­en the im­mi­nent use of force, on oc­cu­pants.

Al­so caters for in­stances in which a home in­vad­er in­ten­tion­al­ly caus­es in­jury to oc­cu­pants of a dwelling house, in­clud­ing griev­ous bod­i­ly harm, griev­ous sex­u­al as­sault, rape and death.

For self-de­fence, use of dead­ly force may be jus­ti­fied where an oc­cu­pant rea­son­ably be­lieves force is nec­es­sary to pre­vent death, griev­ous bod­i­ly harm, griev­ous sex­u­al as­sault or rape.

As soon as that leg­is­la­tion is im­ple­ment­ed, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said amend­ments will be made to the Firearms Act to make it eas­i­er to ac­cess le­gal firearms.

“Then you can legal­ly ‘emp­ty the clip,” she quipped.

She said Gov­ern­ment will al­so col­lab­o­rate with the Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er to sim­pli­fy and stream­line the pep­per spray ap­pli­ca­tion process.

“Where pos­si­ble, se­nior of­fi­cers at po­lice sta­tions will be au­tho­rised to sign off on ap­pli­ca­tions. This will quick­en the process and al­low the se­nior dis­trict of­fi­cer flex­i­bil­i­ty to make re­al-time de­ci­sions re­gard­ing ap­pli­ca­tions where there are im­mi­nent threats, par­tic­u­lar­ly do­mes­tic vi­o­lence cas­es.”

Manda­to­ry cut-off time for out­door fetes

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said Gov­ern­ment al­so in­tends re­view­ing leg­is­la­tion for the grant­i­ng of bar/par­ty li­cences.

“We’ll en­able cit­i­zens to hire their own at­tor­neys to rep­re­sent their in­ter­ests at li­cenc­ing hear­ings. Cur­rent­ly, the po­lice rep­re­sent the pub­lic at hear­ings. Most of the time, they don’t ac­cu­rate­ly re­flect truth­ful opin­ions of cit­i­zens who have ob­jec­tions,” she said.

“There will al­so be leg­is­la­tion for a manda­to­ry cut-off time for all pub­lic events re­quir­ing a dance­hall li­cence that are not held with­in an en­closed build­ing, plus leg­is­la­tion re­gard­ing the use of mu­sic trucks and the cut-off times for mu­sic trucks. But there will be ex­emp­tions for fes­ti­vals.

“Mu­sic trucks have be­come a scourge, af­fect­ing ill peo­ple, and a source of ir­ri­ta­tion across T&T. Many nights you hear them play­ing mu­sic loud­ly at late hours. Fire­works leg­is­la­tion will be brought to Par­lia­ment and passed in the new term. There will be spe­cif­ic days and pe­ri­ods when per­sons will be al­lowed to use fire­works.”


Related articles

Sponsored

Weather

PORT OF SPAIN WEATHER

Sponsored