Young Belizeans Turning to Crack and Cocaine

Hard drugs are finding their way into the hands of more young Belizeans, and police say the trend is becoming increasingly difficult to ignore. Assistant Superintendent Stacy Smith reports that officers arrest young people almost every day for offences involving crack cocaine and cocaine. But beyond the arrests lies a troubling question: what is pushing them toward these dangerous drugs in the first place? Smith says the country must examine the forces driving this growing problem. Here is what she told us.

 

ASP Stacy Smith, Staff Officer

“Given that I review a lot of the sitreps, I have noted and quite concerningly that I am seeing more and more persons, young persons who were not traditionally known to be engaged in hard drugs, i.e. crack cocaine are now being arrested on a daily basis. There is not a day that sitrep is not produced whereby someone is arrested for cracking cocaine or cocaine and gender does not matter, age does not matter, social status does not matter. So there is an issue and I don’t if those students in the country or those persons who have keen to know what may have triggered these changes but the Belize Police Department remains available to provide the statistics to see what occurred over the past few years, at least from my anecdotal view, that has resulted in this transition from marijuana being one of the mainstream drugs to cocaine or crack being used as one of the recreational drugs or a part of a habit.”

 

Smith says operations in western Belize are also focused on cracking down on these drug houses.

 

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