Category Archives: Drug Trade

Poverty is a crime

By Raffique Shah
May 22, 2023

Raffique ShahNothing I have ever written in this space can be misconstrued to suggest that I proffered poverty as an excuse for crime. To the contrary, I have advanced many reasons why the link between poverty and crime is not axiomatic. And, I have warned the poor to stay clear of crime since they will be made to pay heaviest for it, while the real criminals have the wealth to retain high-priced attorneys, whose jobs are to keep the crooks out of prison.
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Crime and punishment T&T style

By Raffique Shah
July 25, 2019

Raffique ShahOozing from the barrels of blood that flowed from the bullet-ridden corpses of last week’s 24 murder victims and almost as many who suffered serious to critical gunshot wounds were several important lessons that we may choose to ignore, to our peril. Violent crimes have spiralled out of control, and most people are inured to the blood and gore that once shocked us. Now, spectators calmly record the macabre murders on their smart-phone cameras, video-clips to be uploaded on the Intrernet. Some achieve viral videos ratings, providing entertainment for huge audiences on social media.
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Jamming the Poor, Still

By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
May 13, 2019

Dr. Selwyn R. CudjoeIn 1981, after teaching in the United States for about ten years, I decided to return home for good. To do so I had to erect a personal library so I could do my work. Without my library I would be lost, so I asked my first cousin—one of those cousins who possesses the skills to do everything—to build a library at the back of my mother’s house.
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Man charged in $24 million drug, weapons bust

By The Multimedia Desk
December 04, 2017 – trinidadexpress.com

Outar MarajOutar Maraj of Mc Bean Village, Couva, appeared in the Tunapuna Second Magistrates’ Court today, on two counts of possession of cocaine for the purpose of trafficking; one count of possession of marijuana for the purpose of trafficking; possession of four firearms and a quantity of assorted ammunition.
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Drugs Don’t Kill People, Neoliberalism Kills People

By Brad Blankenship
November 22, 2017 – telesurtv.net

DrugsOpioids, a class of drugs chemically similar to the painkiller morphine, have been sweeping across North America since the late 1990s into the first two decades of the 2000s. These powerful sedative drugs, which include prescription painkillers like oxycodone and powerful street drugs such as heroin, are extremely deadly because their depressant effects can stop a user from breathing. Because of their widespread and ever-increasing use, drug overdose deaths “are the leading cause of injury death in the United States,” according to the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services (HHS).
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No Crime Plan Without Legalising Drugs

By Leanna Ganga
April 18, 2017

MarijuanaImagine a society where all drugs are legal and persons can openly purchase any drug of their choice from licensed and regulated distributors, just like they already purchase cigarettes and alcohol.

One may think of such a society in a state of what sociologists call anomie and deviance, with lots of intoxicated people committing criminal acts and the majority of citizens being addicts. This thinking, however, would be inaccurate.
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Deal with it, Dr Rowley

Newsday Editorial
Wednesday, May 4 2016 – newsday.co.tt

MarijuanaRONALD RAMDASS, 50, had been here before. As he stood in the dock of the San Fernando Magistrates Court, he weighed his legal options. The magistrate, Brahmanand Dubay, read out the charge: possession of marijuana. It was a charge with which Ramdass was all too familiar. According to court officials, he had more than 20 convictions for larceny and drug offences.
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FRESH WEED PROBE

By Nalinee Seelal
June 17, 2015 – newsday.co.tt

MarijuanaPOLICE confirmed yesterday that they found five grammes of a “plant like material resembling marijua-na” at the Prime Minister’s private residence, prompting Acting Police Commissioner Stephen Williams to order an investigation into the mat-ter.

A report of the find was submitted to Williams at 2 pm yesterday — a day after he said that the police were not in possession of any information on drugs being found at the Prime Minister’s residence. The report, signed by Snr Supt Gould and given to Williams yesterday indicated, that the substance contained in a plastic bag was discovered in the male wash-room of a Gazebo on the western end of the Prime Minister’s residence at Phillipine. The discovery was made by a Special Branch officer on Friday April 19, 2013 at about 8.50 am.
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Ramlogan disturbed by lack of charges

By Andre Bagoo
October 31 2014 – newsday.co.tt

Cocaine PacksATTORNEY General Anand Ramlogan yesterday said he was “gravely disturbed” by the lack of charges in relation to a report of a doctor failing to notify law enforcement authorities about cocaine said to have been surgically removed from the body of a patient. He did so as he called on Acting Police Commissioner Stephen Williams to continue a probe into the matter.
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