Dr Var­ma Deyals­ingh

The Di­rec­tor of the Pol­i­cy and Com­mu­ni­ty Sup­port Of­fice (PAC­SO), at­tor­ney Za­heer Ali, has been tasked with al­le­vi­at­ing some of the is­sues plagu­ing our com­mu­ni­ties. He heads this spe­cialised unit un­der the Min­istry of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty, which fo­cus­es on mul­ti­sec­toral crime pre­ven­tion, youth de­vel­op­ment, psy­choso­cial sup­port and pub­lic safe­ty ini­tia­tives aimed at strength­en­ing vul­ner­a­ble com­mu­ni­ties.

PAC­SO has em­barked on a Spe­cial Psy­choso­cial In­ter­ven­tion and Ed­u­ca­tion­al En­gage­ment part­ner­ship with the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion and non-state ac­tors, ad­dress­ing drug use and oth­er con­cerns among school chil­dren.

On June 23, 2025, dur­ing Par­lia­ment’s Mid-Year Bud­get Re­view, Min­is­ter of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Roger Alexan­der raised an alarm over re­ports of school­child­ren us­ing metham­phet­a­mine at school.

He said: “The school chil­dren of to­day have gained some in­for­ma­tion from the so­cial me­dia net­work where they are putting meth in­to a bal­loon, fill­ing the bal­loon with he­li­um gas, putting it in their mouth like this (he im­i­tat­ed the ac­tion) and suck­ing it. It gives you an in­stant at­tack, so you see some of the be­hav­iours that you are see­ing.”

He promised his min­istry would ad­dress the is­sue, tack­ling both the symp­toms and root caus­es.

His con­cern is not un­found­ed.

On Au­gust 11, 2023, the first metham­phet­a­mine lab­o­ra­to­ry in T&T was dis­cov­ered at The Res­i­dences, South Park, San Fer­nan­do, in an in­tel­li­gence-led T&T Po­lice Ser­vice op­er­a­tion.

Crys­tal meth is one of the most ad­dic­tive drugs and leaves users phys­i­cal­ly de­te­ri­o­rat­ed, with weight loss, miss­ing teeth and skin sores (meth zom­bie look).

We can­not af­ford to let this take hold here.

On March 21, 2026, po­lice of­fi­cers raid­ed a San Juan home and seized quan­ti­ties of Mol­ly, metham­phet­a­mine, and Ec­sta­sy. This was done un­der a State of Emer­gency op­er­a­tion, negat­ing the need for a search war­rant.

As bor­der se­cu­ri­ty im­proves, the drug traf­fick­ing net­work would des­per­ate­ly need oth­er com­modi­ties to sell. Meth labs could be at­trac­tive, of­fer­ing the ben­e­fits of low­er op­er­a­tional costs and re­duced risk of de­tec­tion in com­par­i­son to smug­gling nar­cotics or cul­ti­vat­ing mar­i­jua­na fields.

Re­gret­tably, our chil­dren are be­ing tar­get­ed as the new con­sumers.

A 2016 re­port by the In­ter-Amer­i­can Drug Abuse Con­trol Com­mis­sion of the Or­gan­i­sa­tion of Amer­i­can States found that sec­ondary school stu­dents in T&T were in­creas­ing­ly en­gag­ing in the recre­ation­al use of mar­i­jua­na. This can open the door­way to try oth­er il­lic­it sub­stances.

On Sep­tem­ber 11, 2019, then TTPS Pub­lic In­for­ma­tion Of­fi­cer Wayne Mys­tar warned that “zessers” had found their way in­to schools.

On March 28, 2021, Eye On De­pen­den­cy di­rec­tor Garth St Clair told mem­bers of the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Joint Se­lect Com­mit­tee on or­gan­ised crim­i­nal gangs that chil­dren in pri­ma­ry and sec­ondary schools were be­ing re­cruit­ed by gangs.

Gangs in­ten­tion­al­ly tar­get young chil­dren, ex­ploit­ing the fact that very young chil­dren are be­low the age of crim­i­nal re­spon­si­bil­i­ty. This is why the Gov­ern­ment’s im­ple­men­ta­tion of the School Ori­ent­ed Polic­ing Unit (SOPU) is so im­por­tant.

On Sep­tem­ber 17, 2025, a 13-year-old Coryal Sec­ondary School stu­dent be­came the first to be charged with pos­ses­sion of mar­i­jua­na for the pur­pose of traf­fick­ing by of­fi­cers from SOPU.

Then, on Feb­ru­ary 23, 2026, a SOPU of­fi­cer held a Form Three stu­dent with 14 pack­ets of mar­i­jua­na at a San Juan school.

Oth­ers have been caught with brown­ies and mar­i­jua­na in a suck-a-bag. The pres­ence of drugs in our schools is a se­ri­ous na­tion­al con­cern.

Drugs not on­ly af­fect chil­dren’s phys­i­cal health and in­crease men­tal health dis­or­ders, but al­so im­pact their ed­u­ca­tion­al pur­suits, safe­ty and fu­ture op­por­tu­ni­ties.

This is not sim­ply a law en­force­ment is­sue—it is a na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment is­sue and a ma­jor pub­lic health con­cern.

To the traf­fick­ers, every child is a po­ten­tial cus­tomer, couri­er, re­cruiter, or source of prof­it. Schools are now seen as a new mar­ket of op­por­tu­ni­ty and for ex­pan­sion.

We need to show chil­dren what lies be­yond drug use. No one tells them about the pain, men­tal and phys­i­cal fall­out, and the lives lost. We need to counter the street talk, the mu­sic and the glam­our with re­al­i­ty.

We need to ed­u­cate and em­pow­er chil­dren to say no. Pro­tect­ing our chil­dren re­quires a whole-of-so­ci­ety ap­proach.

If we want to save our na­tion, we must en­sure our schools re­main places of learn­ing, hope and op­por­tu­ni­ty—not gate­ways to ad­dic­tion and de­spair.

A na­tion that los­es its chil­dren to drugs risks los­ing its fu­ture. The fight against drugs in schools is not mere­ly about pre­vent­ing sub­stance abuse; it is about pro­tect­ing our hu­man cap­i­tal, pre­serv­ing fam­i­ly sta­bil­i­ty and safe­guard­ing na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment.

We must act ear­ly, act to­geth­er and act de­ci­sive­ly. Pre­ven­tion, ed­u­ca­tion, treat­ment and en­force­ment must work hand in hand. Our chil­dren de­serve noth­ing less.