Akash Sama­roo

Lead Ed­i­tor-Pol­i­tics

akash.sama­roo@cnc3.co.tt

The Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment says it vot­ed against the Gov­ern­ment’s sweep­ing leg­is­la­tion rais­ing the le­gal ages for al­co­hol, to­bac­co, cannabis and gam­bling be­cause it be­lieved a Bill with such far-reach­ing con­se­quences re­quired greater scruti­ny and pub­lic con­sul­ta­tion.

Ex­plain­ing its de­ci­sion not to sup­port the Mis­cel­la­neous Pro­vi­sions (Al­co­hol, Cannabis, Dan­ger­ous Drugs, Gam­bling and To­bac­co) Bill, 2026, the Op­po­si­tion said it had sought to have the leg­is­la­tion re­ferred to a Joint Se­lect Com­mit­tee (JSC).

The PNM said that process would have al­lowed stake­hold­ers, ex­perts, af­fect­ed in­dus­tries and young peo­ple to ap­pear be­fore Par­lia­ment and have their views con­sid­ered be­fore the leg­is­la­tion was passed.

That pro­pos­al was re­ject­ed.

“The PNM could not sup­port leg­is­la­tion of such far-reach­ing con­se­quence with­out ad­e­quate time for scruti­ny, con­sul­ta­tion and pub­lic en­gage­ment,” the par­ty said.

The Op­po­si­tion al­so said it pro­posed amend­ments aimed at ad­dress­ing con­cerns it had with the leg­is­la­tion, but those changes were al­so re­ject­ed.

The Bill was passed in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives by a vote of 23-10, with the Gov­ern­ment us­ing its ma­jor­i­ty to ap­prove the leg­is­la­tion with­out Op­po­si­tion sup­port.

Among its ma­jor pro­vi­sions, the Bill rais­es the le­gal age for pur­chas­ing and con­sum­ing al­co­hol and to­bac­co from 18 to 21, while set­ting 25 as the thresh­old for cannabis pos­ses­sion and par­tic­i­pa­tion in gam­bling.

It al­so sig­nif­i­cant­ly in­creas­es fines and prison sen­tences for sev­er­al of­fences as­so­ci­at­ed with those ac­tiv­i­ties.

Gov­ern­ment amend­ments al­so in­tro­duced manda­to­ry iden­ti­fi­ca­tion re­quire­ments in sev­er­al cir­cum­stances, in­clud­ing the pur­chase of al­co­hol and to­bac­co, pos­ses­sion of cannabis and en­try in­to gam­bling es­tab­lish­ments.

The PNM main­tained that its vote against the leg­is­la­tion was not sim­ply about op­pos­ing the Gov­ern­ment’s pol­i­cy ob­jec­tives, but al­so re­flect­ed con­cerns about how the Bill was de­vel­oped and tak­en through Par­lia­ment.

“Win­ning an elec­tion does not make con­sul­ta­tion op­tion­al. Par­lia­ment must scru­ti­nise, ques­tion and lis­ten,” the par­ty said.

It ar­gued that leg­is­la­tion af­fect­ing busi­ness­es, young adults and the wider pub­lic should have been sub­ject­ed to broad­er en­gage­ment be­fore be­ing ap­proved.

“The PNM could not sup­port leg­is­la­tion we con­sid­ered flawed and ex­ces­sive­ly puni­tive, or a process that lim­it­ed mean­ing­ful pub­lic en­gage­ment,” the par­ty said.

The Op­po­si­tion main­tained that send­ing the leg­is­la­tion to a JSC would have pro­vid­ed an op­por­tu­ni­ty to ex­am­ine those con­cerns and po­ten­tial­ly im­prove the Bill.

“Good laws are strength­ened by con­sul­ta­tion,” the PNM said.