Ganja Abuse ...... ( by the way it is an illegal substance)

This is an article taken from The Guyana Times highlighting the accounts of a villager from Goed Fortuin. "Every day they sit idly at street corners ‘ burning the weed’ ( smoking marijuana); as you pass by they will call out to you: " Sis lef' a small change with you fren." The money they collect is often used to purchase ganja and rum and this makes up the daily fare of scores of young men in the low- income settlement at Goed Fortuin, West Coast Demerara.

With opportunities scarce in this market economy, many of the young men are without jobs, but they have families- some with as many as five children. A visit by this newspaper to the community on Monday revealed a kind of hopelessness that is not only a feature at Goed Fortuin, but in many other rural communities across the country. Men and women live their lives with reckless abandon and for every misfortune, they blame it on the authorities or someone else.Only last week there were two murders at Goed Fortuin and in each, the circumstances bear distressing tales of abuse and bullyism.

“ What we see happing [ sic] here is the end product of a culture of drug and alcohol abuse,” a school teacher who asked not be named told this newspaper. “ It is a ganja culture,” the teacher continued, noting that the abuse of the substance is the root cause of the problems the community faces.“ If they don’t smoke it, then they does sell it,” the teacher said, observing that in recent times several strange faces have been showing up in the area."

Well according to Sharma, " I hope the President is watching." Food prices rise, gas prices rise there will surely be an influx of drug pushers, users and an increase in heightened criminal activity.... I thought the Big man had an economic back ground. It doesn't take a scientist to realize what is going on. When a government starts to put their people first, then and only then will these societal conflicts decrease.