INDEPENDENT Senator Dana Seetahal revealed that over 20 per cent of the population is either addicted to drugs or on the way to becoming addicted. She made this shocking revelation while delivering the keynote address at a joint handing over and installation ceremony hosted by the Rotary Club of St. Augustine West.

The gala function was held at the Calypso Lounge of the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Port of Spain last week Saturday.

Internationally-acclaimed physicist and senior lecturer of the University of the West Indies (UWI) Tobagonian Dr. Stephan Gift took over the “chain” of leadership of the club, while the leadership of the entire district of Rotary 7030, comprising of clubs throughout the English and French speaking Caribbean region, shifted to Trinidad with the installation of Victor Pilgrim as its district governor.

Referring to Rotary’s 2006/7 theme: “Lead the Way”, Seetahal, who described Rotary as the “premier” international service organisation, challenged members to lead the way in dealing with two issues confronting the country.

She identified the issues as the drugs situation and the level of crime in the country.

In her own down-to-earth, candid style, the prominent attorney used her court experiences to provide the evidence about the bad drugs situation now confronting TnT.

“Last August, over 1,800 kilos of drugs was found in a boat Down the Islands.

“Then you had a DHL worker, who was sending millions of dollars worth of cocaine out of the country,” she disclosed.

“We are exporting a lot of drugs and a lot of it is also being used right here in Trinidad and Tobago.”

Seetahal continued: “Out of a population of 3,700 prisoners, over 1,000 which is about one-third of the prisons population, is made up of convicted drug offenders.

“And of the remaining two-thirds, many of the offences are drug-related. “You have to realise that a lot of the murders and violence come as a result of people trying to protect their drug turf.”

“Almost every family in the country has a member or close relative, who is an addict,” noted Seetahal. She however lamented that despite the grave drugs situation in the country, the rehabilitation of drug addicts continues to be on a voluntary basis.

“There is little that a magistrate can do unless drug offenders voluntarily agree on rehab.

“There is absolutely no treatment for drugs in the prisons system,” revealed Seetahal.

“You have programmes in the prisons for anger management and for sex offenders but nothing for drugs,” she declared. This is an issue I have raised at least twice during the last year in the Parliament, yet nothing is done to address it,” said Seetahal.

“You have to force the State to change the law to give rehab options to drugs offenders,” she urged.

And on the issue of the level of crime facing the country Seetahal contended that a contributing factor was the delays in the justice system.

“In this country, if you have a magistrate matter such as larceny or assault, you would be lucky if you got that matter heard in five years. Ninety per cent of the matters heard in the Magistrate’s Courts gets thrown out in the end,” she shockingly revealed.

Seetahal submitted that a simple way to deal with the delays in prosecution was the institution of digital/audio recordings in the courts.

“In the Arima court, they put in everything there for digital/audio recordings about two years ago then they left it.

“You still have a situation where the magistrate has to write everything by hand, so a matter would take ten times the time it would take if you had the electronic system in place functioning,” she reasoned.

“You have this long list of about 50 to 100 cases, yet you can only hear about two or three matters for the most per day and the rest gets put off,” explained Seetahal.

“This is a matter that successive governments have failed to deal with,” she charged.

Seetahal called on Rotary as a powerful organisation to use its influence to lobby the leaders in the country to simply implement computerised recordings in courts.

“The people, who are committing crimes, would know that their matters would be heard quickly and that would be a deterrent,” she declared.