Dear Editor,

  Should marijuana be legalized? What are the effects of narcotics use in society today? I’d like to make reference to some important discoveries about marijuana by Dr. Wesley Hall, past president of the American Medical Association, and Dr. Sidney Cohen, a former director of Narcotics Studies at the U.S. National Institute of Mental Health, and also careful research done by William F. Damkembring in his article entitled, “Marijuana on Trial”.

  It is important for the public to know of their research findings. According to them, marijuana is harmful and dangerous and should not be legalized. Those who come to lean on marijuana go on to use stronger drugs. Drivers under the influence of marijuana react like drunken drivers. It affects women as well as men and limits sex drive. Ten percent of children born to mothers who use marijuana will be mentally defective.

  Marijuana is dangerous to your heath and causes brain injury in some cases. Blackouts and memory lapses become more frequent among marijuana users, and tend to last longer than people who don’t. Marijuana prolongs the glare in eyes, causing the user to become quickly and completely blinded by oncoming headlights during driving.

  Marijuana smoking can cause mental illness, trigger psychosis and murder. It has become a huge business for smugglers and peddlers. The drug is smuggled into the United States from the Mexican border. The illicit drug can be found in almost many countries across the world. Carbon monoxide is a silent killer for those who smoke marijuana and other drugs.

  Many people try to find happiness by using marijuana when they are depressed. Some think to smoke marijuana is better than to have a beer or a drink of alcohol. Others suffering from pains and using marijuana as a medicinal cure will explain that the pain will go away for a moment, but the pains will come more frequently.

  Marijuana addiction is dangerous and should not be legalized.

  Alcoholism: Just like drugs – it wrecks family, ruins health, kills people in many countries. According to William Dankenbring, drunk drivers are responsible for about half the automobile fatalities in the USA each year. They cause over 25,000 deaths each year on highways. People drink alcohol and use drugs to get rid of their worries and problems.

  Drunk drivers cause more problems in the world than marijuana users.

  Eco-catastrophe is like smoking marijuana – dump fires polluting the atmosphere can produce toxic fumes, also a silent killer if inhaled. Dump fires can produce carbon monoxide and can affect your heath just as marijuana.

  Narcotics smuggling makes manufacturers rich. In 1970 opium had a street value of US $225,000 per kilo in the United States. Opium- and heroin-smuggling is a dangerous business. The Golden Triangle – Burma, Thailand, Vietnam and Red China – profited from the trade for the years. Modern drug-trafficking between countries has become a lucrative business, but now is a world problem today. In March, 1971 vital statistics indicated the number of addicts around the world per country as follows: Red China, 340,000; United States 200,000; Hong Kong 80,000; Iran 40,000; Puerto Rico 10,000. During that time, those figures were alarming and today double by now.

  The problems with drug addicts are they can be treated, but after treatment about 95 per cent of them go back to drugs.

  Hard narcotics: Amphetamine – a drug used as an inhalant or in a solution to relieve nasal congestion and asthma; LSD is a chemical that produces mental sickness and delusions; Morphine – a drug made from opium to dull pain and cause sleep, used in medicine; Cocaine is a drug used to deaden pain and used as a stimulant.

  In summary: Lack of real purpose is largely responsible for causing young people to turn on with drugs as an escape. Solutions to the drug problems: New education for young people, more skills programs should be introduced; build up ghetto areas; build affordable social homes for citizens; pay decent wages and salaries to workers; educate the affluent in a higher value for a better purpose in life; get rid of ghetto areas; What kind of home is home?

Joseph Harvey

Dear Editor,

  Recently, there has been much discussion surrounding the circular economy.  However, what exactly is a circular economy and how does it differ with our current economy? Our current economic system is a linear one where raw materials are used to make a product, and after its use any waste (e.g. packaging) is thrown away.

  In recent years it has become apparent that the linear economy is based on deeply flawed assumptions. A major flawed assumption is that the earth is capable of providing inexhaustible resources. But, for years the demand placed upon the environment from human-related activities has been greater than the earth’s capacity to regenerate.

  People can maximize the chances of avoiding dangerous environmental degradation and climate change by moving to a circular economy. A circular economy is a regenerative system in which resource, input and waste, emission, and energy leakage are minimized by slowing, closing, and narrowing energy and material loops. This can be achieved through long-lasting design, maintenance, repair, reuse, remanufacturing, refurbishing and recycling.

  Interestingly, prior to the industrial revolution, the circular economy was intuitive and embodied efficient and effective stewardship. The approach demanded ingenuity and creative use of all scarce resources. With the industrial revolution, economies began to transition and a linear economy developed. The world became globalized, based on perceived limitless resources and limitless consumption. This linear economy became identified as the “Take – Make – Dispose” economy.

  In the Caribbean, the circular economy is also not a new concept.  This can be exemplified through the example of the pineapple. The pineapple’s elements can be seen as raw material. It has at least two invisible elements: aesthetics and aromatic. It also has four visible elements: the crown; the peel (skin); the flesh and the core. The Caribbean home utilized all elements. The fruit’s design proudly lent aesthetic when perched on the dining room table. When the ripening fruit’s aroma permeated the room it was time to enjoy it. The fruit was cleaned; its crown carefully harvested for planting; its peel pared off and reserved to make a drink; its flesh removed for instant enjoyment or further processing in some delicacy; its core disposed in the compost bin for compost when planting. Nothing was wasted.

  It is important to mention that simply replacing the linear economy with a circular economy will not solve the world’s problems. While the circular economy and the ideas behind it could make a big difference toward an ecologically sustainable future, attention must also be paid to the comprehensive transformation of our political and social system.

  While increasing living standards and wealth for some, the linear economy has not totally assisted in eliminating poverty and inequality. Decades-long development efforts to reduce poverty have seen some important gains, and since 1990, nearly 1.1 billion people have been lifted out of extreme poverty. However, justifiable pride in this achievement must be tempered by pessimism about inequality, with the IMF asserting in 2017 that “despite sustained economic growth and rapid poverty reductions, income inequality remains stubbornly high in many low-income developing countries.”

  Thus, we have to think beyond the circular economy. We can not only institute a circular economy if the institution is bad. There are powerful corporate and state actors who will strive to embrace the circular economy using the same financial paradigm of wealth accumulation for the few. As a result, longstanding human interactions and power relations that are based on inequality and inequity will be replicated. If profit maximization and narrowminded financial objectives are perpetuated without putting people and the environment first, a circular economy will fail in the same manner that the linear economy has.

  How can we in the Caribbean build and embrace a circular economy that promotes sustainability and equality? How can we harness our creativity and innovation to protect our native flora and fauna? How do we transform our political and social systems so that everyone has a chance to earn a living and find their place in society? These are questions that we in the Caribbean must begin to think about and discuss. If we do not, then it is possible that others will and we will not be equal beneficiaries in the new circular economy. 

The EUX Writers Club

The pen is mightier than the sword

By Alvaro Sanchez Cordero

Just like Venezuelan national hero Francisco de Miranda, Marcus Garvey also had three ships (I refuse to use the example of Christopher Columbus).

  And like Miranda, Garvey also had a decolonizing plan. As you can see, the example of Columbus would have been inappropriate.

  The ship analogy doesn’t end there. It was also on a ship, owned by the despicable United Fruit Company, that Garvey was deported from the US back to Jamaica in 1927, thus cracking the vast social, nationalist and pan-Africanist movement that he had developed in Harlem, as well as other towns and regions in the US.

  But let’s save this piece from becoming a ship battle and let’s put our feet on the ground. Well, actually, Garvey’s ships were his grounding feet.

  Before Garvey, several African-American leaders and intellectuals had contemplated African nationalism as a means to get back to the African roots. However, Garvey went a step further and developed an actual blueprint on how to achieve such a noble goal. Indeed, a very important component in Garvey’s plan included a business operation that would generate enough revenue for him and his followers to go to Africa and settle there in order to develop such huge continent.

  In a nutshell, this is the story behind Garvey’s ships and the Black Star Line, the commercial wing of Garvey’s social movement, the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA). This was how Garvey planned to carry Blacks from the Americas “back” to Africa.

  Nonetheless, it wasn’t just about making trips and (hopefully) making money. It was about content. And this was the other side of the coin that propelled Garvey to success and stardom. Garvey brought pride to his followers. He uplifted masses of African-Americans in the US and other countries by awakening their race consciousness while cultivating in them important values, such as education, culture and reading, instrumental in going to Africa to rid it from colonialism. 

  Garvey’s plan was indeed beautiful. However, let’s not fool ourselves. He was operating in the United States of America. Hence, it would be a matter of time before the US Government would try to break both the man and his ideas.

  The US official assigned to do that job was the first ever Director of the FBI J. Edgar Hoover, an individual who would spend the next 48 years in charge of that department, so Garvey was his first major case in “cheating and lying” (using the words of the current US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo when he described the duties of the CIA, not far off from the irresponsible behaviour of its cousin the FBI).

  You can imagine all the hideous things that Hoover did to Garvey. He infiltrated his organization, harassed him and literally sabotaged his business ventures. At the end, Hoover made sure that Garvey went to prison and later got deported.

  In spite of all this, Hoover couldn’t fully destroy Garvey, for Garvey’s legacy remained in so many people, including historical figures, such as: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr, Malcolm X, Nelson Mandela, Kwame Nkrumah, Louis Farrakhan and Bob Marley, among others.

  Jamaican national hero and Rastafarian prophet, Garvey will shine forever in the national flag of Ghana.

  In celebration of the 132^nd anniversary of this pan-Africanist champion and leader, let’s pay tribute to Garvey by allowing our ships of liberation to freely navigate through the seas of union and equality. 

  ~ Alvaro Sanchez Cordero is the Charge D’ Affaires of the Venezuelan Embassy to Barbados. ~

Dear Editor,

The Government of Sint Maarten continues to face financial challenges due to the damage caused by Irma and Maria almost two years ago. As the rebuilding effort continues and hotels continue to come back online, as a country we need to step outside the box and explore other economic and revenue-generating opportunities in order to become a smart island.

The Smart city concept is a common term used due to increased urbanization, scarce resources and development pressures. Countries need to turn to smart innovations in order to make their cities more livable in order to accommodate growth. Building a smart city is the order of the day as, according to the United Nations, two-thirds of the world’s population will live in urban areas by 2050.

Today, more than ever, we need to plan in a more strategic manner and look beyond rather than continuing to look within at the current business model. The current tourism-oriented economy will continue, and we must further enhance and develop it in a sustainable manner. The hotel infrastructure continues to rebuild back better. We have two new hotels (e.g. Planet Hollywood) that are planned and will add additional hotel rooms to the current room inventory.

Some hotel properties won’t ever be rebuilt (e.g. Summit Resort Hotel) while others are pending decision-making on rebuilding (e.g. Westin at Dawn Beach). In the meantime, life goes on, but financial challenges within the public sector continue to create headaches for policymakers and financial independence of any nation is the ultimate goal.

Hence, economic diversification is the key and should be pursued now more than ever. Our country needs strategies that leads to sustainable economic growth, an expanded vibrant business sector, good job opportunities for St. Maarteners and a higher quality of life for all.

There are economic areas that the country should explore and pursue such as international business services/insurance-risk industries; a ship and aircraft registry; fintech/block chain technology; e-commerce/technology sector; among others. Why can’t we pursue with private sector partners business solutions and scale them globally from Sint Maarten?

Steps need to be taken today to establish a diversified business ecosystem leading to an economically and financially sustainable smart nation by 2030 that will be able to deal with the various global changes – including climate change.

For example, St. Maarten should explore the possibility of acquiring a Geostationary Orbital Slot for Satellites via the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) – it’s like renting real estate in the sky. Outer space, for the telecommunication sector is becoming more accessible to more actors in existing and emerging new industries.

Bermuda, an island nation similar in size in population compared to St. Maarten, has four satellite orbital slots – an area where satellites operate – which were allocated by the ITU to that island nation back in 1983. One slot hosted its first satellite in 2013.

A country of course needs the necessary legislative regulations such as a space law – in line with the Outer Space Treaty – in order to capitalize on satellite space slots, and the St. Maarten House of Parliament has a key role to play. The State of the Satellite Industry Report 2019 said the global space economy was worth more than 360 billion dollars in 2018 – a satellite industry that is worth more than 277 billion dollars with telecommunications being the biggest sector – and is forecast to become a trillion-dollar industry by 2040. The island of Jamaica is also working on developing a slot for commercialization.

The development of a Geostationary Orbital Slot for Satellites also has applications for aviation and shipping sectors – aircraft and shipping registry – through the use of surveillance or reconnaissance satellites.

Why not establish the “St. Maarten Space and Satellite Policy Advisory Group” which can lead to the establishment of the “St. Maarten Space and Satellite Authority” that would chart, manage and capitalize on the opportunities that exist in this area whereby country Sint Maarten becomes a part of emerging space economies which translates into economic diversification and financial independence?

Roddy Heyliger