Phillips
Lloyd Williams, Senior Associate Editor
NOT MANY years ago, if a country had a drug problem, it was thought that it was of its own making and it would have had to deal with it in its own way and all by itself.
But not anymore. The universal view now is that all countries must tackle the problem together, so pervasive is the evil of drug-trafficking. There must be no safe haven for drug traffickers or their bosses, the drug lords.
It was this thinking which, a few weeks ago, brought to Jamaica, Bob Ainsworth, Britain's Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the Home Office, to discuss both countries' drug problems with his counterpart, Dr. Peter Phillips, Minister of National Security. Mr. Ainsworth has responsibility for Anti-Drugs Co-ordination and Serious Crimes.
At an interview with both ministers, they fielded questions ranging from bilateral co-operation in the fight against drugs, to the problems of the drug mules and the issue of whether Jamaicans travelling to Britain will be required to get visas here first.
Jamaica has for years been the foremost producer and exporter of marijuana (ganja), in the Caribbean and is also a major transit country for cocaine destined for the United States and other international markets, including Britain.
Consumer
Britain is a major consumer country of illicit drugs and is facing a serious drug problem - in particular an influx of cocaine. Mr. Ainsworth explained in the interview:
"The drug problem in the UK, the bit of it that's growing, I am sorry to say, despite the success that we are having - because we are having more interdictions on the cocaine side than on heroin, we are seizing increasing quantities - but the part of the problem we've got that's going is the cocaine side and we don't try to deny that at all but we need to up our game. And we've long recognised that we can't do that simply at our own borders and in our own way without co-operation across international boundaries.
"We're dealing with a very sophisticated, well-financed, highly profitable international trade and it's causing problems in many, many countries. I would suggest to you here that the problems it's giving to Jamaica are every bit as great if not greater than those it's giving to the UK and we are just hugely aware that our interests are so intertwined in dealing with this problem."
The March 2001 (the latest) International Narcotics Control Strategy Report, published annually by the U.S. State Department's Bureau for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, assesses the drug situation in Britain:
"Marijuana (ganja) remains the most-used illicit drug in the UK, but with an estimated 200,000 problem opiate users, a major concern is heroin and other more harmful drugs (notably powder and crack cocaine). Cocaine use seems to have been on the increase over the last five years, especially among young people. The UK's major drug survey shows that, although the proportion of adults using drugs other than cocaine in the past year has not changed significantly since 1994, the proportion using cocaine in the past year increased significantly among both adults (from 0.5 to 1.7 per cent) and among teenagers aged 16 to 19, (from one to four per cent). Use of crack also increased during 2001 to approximately one per cent of young people. Virtually all parts of the UK, including many rural areas, confront the problem of drug addiction to at least some degree. The death toll from heroin/morphine rose from 445 in 1997 to 754 in 1999 in England and Wales. Similarly, in Scotland, the figure rose from 74 in 1997 to 196 in 2000. All acute drug-related deaths in the United Kingdom rose from 3,160 in 1997 to 3,333 in 1999. In all cases, these are the most recent figures available."
Threat
Britain does face a serious drug problem with its National Criminal Intelligence Service reporting that it faces its worst-ever threat from national and international organised crime, and that drugs are linked to about 80 per cent of all organised crime in London, and about 60 per cent of UK crime overall.
In early March Dr. Phillips had visited the UK for similar discussions with Mr. Ainsworth and other officials. This, after dozens of Jamaicans were held at London's Gatwick and Heathrow airports suspected of smuggling cocaine into the country by swallowing the drug. Several were convicted and sent to prison. In one week 22 were arrested, following 26 similar arrests the previous week. These "drug mules" flew in aboard British Airways and Air Jamaica flights, the two airlines that service the Jamaica-UK route.
Dr. Phillips had a look at a special police squad called "Operation Trident" in the London Metropolitan Police area which deals with "black-on-black violence, most of it associated with crack cocaine.
The police in London and some other areas, believe that much of their problems stem from the involvement of the Jamaican Yardie gangs in the crack cocaine trade.
Penitentiary
One of the places Mr. Ainsworth went to during his brief visit to Jamaica was the General Penitentiary, Tower Street, central Kingston, where he saw Britons who are serving time for attempting to smuggle drugs to the UK. This was Mr. Ainsworth's reaction:
"I got quite a shock. I think they got quite a shock when they got interned in there as well. And one of the main messages that we want to put across both in Britain and over here is that there are people, and they're usually the small people, who are conned into getting involved in this trade. They get themselves involved thinking that there is some big opportunity and thinking that the downside is relatively small and then they wind up in an institution like that and they are just not prepared for it. Now I would say to them, they had better think very seriously before they get themselves into drug smuggling because those who have been caught had one hell of a surprise and they should be very wary about putting themselves in the same position.
"We are upping our game, I think we have been more effective. I think we are going to be able to do more than we have done and so the message to the criminal fraternity across the board is that Britain and Jamaica and the links between Britain and Jamaica are not going to be easy game. And they had better think very seriously before they continue to invest in that smuggling route because between us, we are determined to tackle it, to crack down on it.
"The drug problem, international narcotics, is seen as having a truly massive impact on Jamaican society and anybody who underplays the impact that that's having really, I don't think, does Jamaica any favours, they don't do the Jamaican community in Britain any favours and they don't do the UK any favours."
According to Dr. Phillips, Mr. Ainsworth's visit so shortly after he had visited him in the UK and the various agencies for which he has responsibility, "is a clear indication to us in Jamaica" of the emphasis that the British Government places in the co-operation programmes with Jamaica.
"We are certainly very pleased to be part of this collaborative effort," Dr. Phillips said. "His visit emphasises the recognition on both sides of the Atlantic - the UK and Jamaica - that combating the international drug trade requires a collaborative effort. It requires an effort that can only be successful if it takes place in both countries simultaneously and indeed if it affects the other partners as well.
"We have emphasised to the minister our intention to ensure that we cut off to the greatest extent possible the flow of drugs coming through Jamaica to the United Kingdom. In this we are united in a joint effort. We are going to strengthen that effort with considerable assistance from the British authorities, particularly where it affects drug couriers. We want to send a clear message - one that we are going to be stepping up our efforts, and two that there is really no gold on that side and anyone who thinks that this is an attractive undertaking ought to think again.
"I have said it before and I'll say it again: as far as the druggists are concerned the couriers are just another wrapping for a parcel of drugs and they will dispense with them as easily as they will dispense with a bit of brown paper wrapping. They have been found on the streets of London washed up, dissected and sometimes worse. There is no virtue in that trade.
Exchange
"In any event they need to be assured that through our joint effort we are going to be doing all we can to stop that trade. We are embarked upon other areas of law enforcement. There is real collaboration with our police forces the Metropolitan Police in London and the Jamaica Constabulary Force. We are looking to jointly place officers in the respective countries on an exchange basis so that we can together fight the common enemy. We are also sharing our databases and information and we are planning even more ways in which we can launch an effort to confront what is a single transnational network which operates simultaneously in the UK, in Jamaica and in North America."
According to Dr. Phillips, there was a general recognition that this kind of effort must be stepped up. "We want to do all we can to cut down the levels of violence that are involved and I must say that not only through the Home Office but through the Foreign Office, the Ministry of Defence in the UK, and HM Customs and Excise for which Mr. Ainsworth has responsibility, there is a very far-reaching effort and I think we have really only begun to plumb the possibilities of co-operation between us and I look forward to strengthening the already existing efforts and to move it forward with it."
