Use of ecstasy in Guyana’s school a “worrying situation” – CANU

The Customs Anti-Narcotics Unit (CANU) has commended the teachers and other administrators who report the use of illicit drugs, such as ecstasy, in schools, but, at the same time, urged them to also report the matter to the Education Ministry.
Deputy Head of CANU, Lesley Ramlall recently told media operatives that while his office was tasked with handling such matters, the mere fact that children were involved meant that the Education Ministry must be notified.
“We have seen a lot of schools reporting cases directly to us whenever they do encounter such challenges in school and we keep encouraging them to go through the Ministry of Education, because we are dealing with minors. And we don’t believe that we should run into a school just like that. So we are working through the Ministry of Education whenever an investigation has to be launched into a school,” he explained.
Ramlall further explained that the use of ecstasy in the country’s school system still remains a major concern for his agency and it was a “very frightening situation”.
“We have seen from our investigations, when you look at the videos of some of our schoolchildren especially young girls – 13, 14, 15-year-old and their behaviours after consuming ecstasy, it is really, really worrying and frightening.”
According to Ramlall, in light of this situation and as part of efforts to curb and eventually eradicate the use of ecstasy among students, CANU has been working aggressively with other agencies, inclusive of the Education Ministry, to educate children in schools, their parents and teachers, on the dangers of the use of ecstasy.
“So, we have that programme in our school system…Thus far, it has been effective, but we would like to see more, we would like to see much more being done in our school system and that is the educational aspect of it. So we need the (Education) Ministry to keep working with the various schools and having us on board,” he said.
Just last month, Public Security Minister Khemraj Ramjattan had declared that officials within the school system were suspected to be culprits in the emerging issue of students using illegal drugs.
“We have to talk to some of these school officials too, because we believe that the culprits are within those schools. It is very difficult to identify them, but we have some suspects,” he had told reporters at a press conference in May.
At that time, Ramjattan explained that law enforcement officials have been successful in capturing some persons who were involved in the introduction and/or sale of ecstasy and other illegal substances in certain schools, but there may still be some who are employed in the school environments.
“I would not want to give you all the activities that we have done, but we believe that people inside of the school system might now be indulging and that is why we will still have [illegal substances in schools].
“And all we can do in relation to that is, of course, when we caught them, we will prosecute and so on. But we are asking those persons not to do those things, it is harming our society, it is harming our children, and we have to have some self-restraint in what you indulge in,” the Minister declared.
“It is endangering our next generation. And we don’t want them and these are bright kids and just for a couple dollars these officials might very well be doing it.”
In February of this year, a 20-year-old private school student was sentenced to three years in prison after he was found to have ecstasy in his possession.
Prior to this, CANU had disclosed that it discovered a drug ring in several city schools.