Jamaica health authorities worrying over juv

Reported concerns in Jamaica that easy access to marijuana-laced snack foods could be putting the health of children at risk would appear to be doing nothing to stem that tide of commercialisation of the products, according to reports from the Caribbean Community member country.

A recent Jamaica Gleaner report states that stakeholders in the country’s western parish of St. James are concerned that the consumption of ‘ganja cookies’ among other popular marijuana-infused products could be drifting into the realm of becoming habit-forming among school children.

The Gleaner reports that school administrators in Jamaica have been less than open about reports of high-school students in St James becoming ill after ingesting ganja cookies though it says that several children with whom it has spoken have confirmed that the practice is becoming ever more popular. One report referred specifically to three boys who began to act strangely after eating the cookie and had to receive medical attention.

Recipes for the creation of ganja (marijuana) cookies, cakes and other marijuana-laced eatables are widely available on the internet and pot brownies, pot cookies, ganja gummies, weed chocolates and cannabis-infused beverages continue to gain consumer favour and arouse investor interest.

The Gleaner report alludes to a teacher at a St. James School who “had personally seen students consuming ganja cakes at schoolboy football matches.”

While medical research has long confirmed that marijuana contains some beneficial medicinal properties, the Gleaner reports a health official from the St. James parish as saying that marijuana consumption could impair learning, concentration, and language development.

Concerns over the increased consumption of marijuana edibles are reportedly linked to the commercial attraction associated with their ‘convenience’ compared to the less discreet option of smoking. In 2016, over US$180 million was reportedly spent on weed-infused food and drinks in California. In Washington State, edibles sales rose 121 per cent last year while in Colorado, marijuana edibles sales tripled between the first quarter of 2014 and the third quarter of 2016, soaring from US$17 million to US$53 million! The fact that marijuana edibles offer a discrete and smoke-free alternative to other methods of cannabis consumption has meant that they command much higher prices than alternative ganja products.

While the Jamaican authorities decriminalized possession of two ounces or less of marijuana since 2015, that does not mean that fear of abuse has disappeared. The de-criminalisation decision has reportedly come with concerns expressed by the country’s National Council on Drug Abuse (NCDA) that the state is not doing enough to discourage ganja use among children.

Reports of drug use by schoolchildren in Guyana have not included reports of consumption of ganja-laced cookies though a senior teacher at an East Coast Demerara Secondary School told the Stabroek Business earlier this week that the copycat effect here of the reported popularisation of the ganja cookie craze in Jamaica cannot be ruled out. “Sooner or later someone might try to test the market

With the proverbial walls closing in on Venezuela on account of the United States-driven political squeeze of the Maduro administration through the choking off of that country’s oil exports, reports continue to surface about the South American republic pressing socalled ‘dark ships’ into service to continue its oil exports.

With the high drama that attends the oil exports confrontation frequently drifting from the absurd to the sublime, the most recent reports of just a few days ago assert that tankers are employing false location techniques to secretly export millions of barrels of oil to Russia in order to secure foreign exchange earnings to keep the country’s economy afloat.

A November 14 Bloomberg article authored by Lucia Kassai names the Liberian-flagged oil-tanker, The Dragon, as being one of the vessels being pressed into service to move Venezuelan oil for the Russian state-run oil company Rosneft Oil Company, PJSC.

The article asserts that the efforts to thwart the US squeeze on Venezuelan oil exports is proceeding through the turning among local school-children,” the teacher said. Asked about the wider challenge linked to the use of drugs among schoolchildren the teacher told this newspaper that she could say little on the issue of drug use in schools. “If the children choose to use drugs in or around the school environment, however, you do not get the impression that schools have enough safeguards.”

By contrast, information on the use of ganja among school-age children in Jamaica has reportedly led the NCDA Director to describe the current state of off of vessels’ transponders long prior to their arrival in Venezuela in order to provide misleading information about their location.

The Bloomberg report says that there has been an increased incidence of oil tankers turning off their location signals over the past month “after the US went after a Chinese-owned shipping company” that was reportedly moving crude oil for Iran. In the instance of Venezuela, the ploy would appear to be working since, according to the Bloomberg report “more tankers appear to be using the technique to avoid penalties, helping give a boost to Venezuelan crude output that has plummeted since the U.S. imposed sanctions.”

The article reports that during the first eleven days of this month Venezuela loaded around 10.86 million barrels of crude, more than double what had been loaded during the corresponding period in October. “About half of those barrels were loaded onto ships that had turned off their transponders, which later delivered cargoes to China and India,” the article says.

The responses of the actors named in aff

to Ho it cen cei no use sai on inv ille aro the inv the pro ity Ma for say of any san the san Ve tho dec the bee we wa

wh it