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Bahamas Not Alone In Marijuana Surge
While an apparent upsurge of marijuana use among youth in The Bahamas seems to follow a global trend, Chairman of the National Drug Council Bill Weeks is confident that the same methods used to knock back first-time cocaine use will be successful in the country’s fight against marijuana abuse.
Jonesbahamas.com | 03-08-06 | Quincy Parker

"There’s nothing that we as a community and as a people cannot do to turn things around; like we did it with the cocaine epidemic, we can do it with what is happening in our community now," he told the Journal on Tuesday.

"It just means that we have to pull together and address (the problem) with the resources and with help from all sectors of the community."

Ministry of Health figures appear to support recent claims that marijuana use is on the rise in The Bahamas, particularly among school-aged children. Eighty-five percent of new patients 15 and under treated at the government’s Community Counseling and Assessment Centre in 2003 were treated for marijuana abuse, and 70 percent of the new patients between 16 and 20.

A different chart compiled by the ministry shows a steady growth in the number of new cases of cocaine abuse at the centre from 1994 to 2000, with a sharp peak in 2001, and then a steady decline. For the same period, new cases of marijuana abuse skyrocketed from 25 in 1994 to 240 in 2002, with a fall-off to 196 new cases in 2003.

The increasing abuse of marijuana by school-aged children does not seem to be limited to The Bahamas.

According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) figures, the average age of first time users of marijuana around the world is between 14 and 15 years old. The UNODC figures also show that age, gender and socio-economic status seem to make a difference.

The UNODC lists on its website the percentage of 15 to 16-year-olds who have used marijuana in their lifetimes in different regions around the world.

In France, 35 percent of those surveyed said they had at some time used cannabis. In the United States, that figure is higher, at almost 41 percent. Forty two point eight percent of Australian youth say they have used it, and 42.7 percent of young people in Ontario, Canada said the same.

The UNODC statistics also suggest that as teenagers age, they are more likely to use marijuana. The figures given indicate that only five percent of seventh-graders say they have used marijuana, while that number rises to 30 percent to 40 percent in the higher grades.

The UNODC also cites studies that suggest boys are more likely to use marijuana than girls. One study cited shows that, of children between 14 and 17 surveyed in North America, 80 percent of boys said they had attended school high, and 75 percent said they had played a sport while under the influence.

The figures are barely different for the girls who participated in the same survey. Seventy percent of the girls went to school high, and just over half (53 percent) said they had played a sport high.

Of all males treated at the Community Counseling and Assessment Centre – formerly Knowles House – in 2003, the majority of treatments (38 percent) were marijuana related. Among females, the leading cause of treatment was alcohol abuse, at 36.4 percent.

The Bahamas Ministry of Health’s preliminary statistics show that of all new patients at the centre in 2004, more people 15 and under (42.1 percent) were admitted to the centre for drug abuse than people over 35 (14.1 percent). These figures do not differentiate between drugs, lumping them all in under a general category.

On the 2004 report, drug abuse was far and away the leading cause for new cases of people 15 and under. In this age bracket, less than two percent of patients were treated for alcohol-related illnesses.

Mr. Weeks said that all the "necessary facilities and strategies" are in place to handle the alcohol and marijuana problem. He also said that a "religious and spiritual component" – which he said a lot of people "do not want to hear about" – is a "big part of what takes place in any recovery process."

He credited a "multi-collaborative effort" between the NDC and the community with what he termed the "dramatic decline" in cocaine abuse in the Bahamas. The major tool Mr. Weeks identified was education; education on the physical and psychological detriments, and on the social and community destruction wrought by cocaine abuse.

"We saw a dramatic decline over a short period of time," Mr. Weeks said. "First time use of cocaine was declining dramatically because people realized that this drug was dangerous and was destroying not just individuals, but families and communities."

Government figures also seem to suggest that Bahamian youth have a serious struggle particularly with alcohol abuse. In a drug prevalence survey conducted among high school students that was released in 2002, over half of 10th and 12th graders surveyed said they had used alcohol in the previous year, and more than a quarter said they had done so within 30 days of taking the survey.

Fourty-eight percent of 8th graders said they had used alcohol in their lifetime, and more than 70 percent of 10th and 12th graders said the same.

Mr. Weeks told the Journal that while he would not speak to the specifics of the government’s statistics: "I would say that alcohol is still a major problem, and it is being used by young people also."

In 2003, 62.1 percent of all patients discharged from government hospitals for mental and behavioral disorders due to alcohol use were under 44-years of age. And the total number of patients discharged from the government hospitals after treatment for alcohol related conditions more than tripled the number of cases of other drugs combined, including cocaine and marijuana.

These statistics come from government facilities, including the Princess Margaret and Rand Memorial Hospitals and the Centre.

Another chart compiled by the Ministry of Health, showing new cases of drug abuse treated at the Community Counseling and Assessment Centre from 1994-2003, reveals a more or less steady incidence of new cases of alcohol abuse.

Another figure that showed a marked increase over the 10-year period was "other drugs" – meaning the type of drug used was unknown. In 1994, there were 10 new patients seen at the Community Counseling and Assessment Centre where the type of drug abused was "other" – in 2003, that figure was 98.

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