(CMC) – The United States has named Jamaica among four Caribbean countries it considers to be a major drug transit or major illicit drug producing country for the fiscal year 2025.
President Joe Biden also named The Bahamas, Belize and Haiti as countries that he said are a significant direct source of precursor chemicals used in the production of certain drugs and substances significantly affecting the US. He clarified, however, that a country’s presence on the list is not necessarily a reflection of its government’s counterdrug efforts or level of cooperation with the United States, adding “the list is not a sanction or penalty.”
Biden then went on to highlight that consistent with the statutory definition of a major drug transit or major illicit drug producing country set forth the law, the reason countries are placed on the list is the combination of geographic, commercial, and economic factors that allow drugs or precursor chemicals to be transited or produced, even if a government has engaged in robust and diligent narcotics control and law enforcement measures.
He said the James M Inhofe National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2023 amended the definition of major drug source countries to include source countries of precursor chemicals used to produce illicit drugs significantly affecting the United States.
“I hereby designate Bolivia, Burma, and Venezuela as having failed demonstrably during the previous 12 months to both adhere to their obligations under international counternarcotics agreements and to take the measures required by section 489(a)(1) of the FAA,” he said, adding that United States programmes that support Bolivia, Burma, and Venezuela are vital to the national interests of the United States.
Provisional data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention indicate there were an estimated 107,543 drug overdose deaths in the United States during 2023, a decrease of three per cent from the 111,029 deaths estimated in 2022.
President Biden said that this is the first annual decrease in drug overdose deaths since 2018 and a sign that his administration’s historic investments are having an impact.
But he acknowledged that while the authorities here expand efforts at home to deal with the drug situation “we also recognise this problem as a global one that requires a coordinated international response.
He said for this reason, his administration launched a Global Coalition in July 2023 uniting more than 150 countries from every region of the world to address synthetic drug threats.
“Participation in this group has tripled in the past 12 months, evidence that every continent is experiencing an alarming increase in the manufacturing, trafficking, and consumption of dangerous illicit synthetic drugs.”
In March, the United Nations (UN) Commission on Narcotic Drugs adopted a United States-sponsored resolution on preventing and responding to overdoses to drive international data collection and information sharing on this issue that remains deeply personal to the American people.
The Commission also voted to place international controls on chemicals used to manufacture illicit fentanyl, methamphetamine, and MDMA, making it harder for trafficking networks to use these substances to create and distribute these dangerous synthetic drugs.
Biden said that fostering robust, long-term partnerships with crucial allies is imperative for effectively combating the fentanyl epidemic and dismantling the sophisticated criminal organisations that exploit it for financial gain.
“Through trilateral mechanisms such as the North American Drug Dialogue and the Trilateral Fentanyl Committee, the United States, Mexico, and Canada have strengthened cooperation to address illicit drug production, advance public health, increase collaboration on the control of precursor chemicals, and engage with the private sector to combat the production of illicit synthetic drugs.
Other countries making the list are Afghanistan, Bolivia, Burma, the People’s Republic of China (PRC), Colombia, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, India, Laos, Mexico, Nicaragua, Pakistan, Panama, Peru, and Venezuela.
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This country is always in the news for bad thimgs. WHAT is the government doing about tgis? This government really needs to go!!!
@Shameful Government… It’s time for YOU to go you silly chimp.
We have a serious problem in the Caribbean, where 8 of every 10 murders are committed by the use of illegal guns.
Mr. USA, we need your help to keep your guns off the streets in our islands.
Your citizens are dying from drug overdoses and our citizens and dying from the bullets of guns that you produce which are on our streets!!
Please help us keep your guns off our streets….
People need to read and understand what they would have read before making comments. If you’re not able to read properly, then you ask someone to assist you. Don’t allow anyone to look at you as though you’re a dumbo.
you suck pussy or fuck batty boy my family is
half Jamaican so I won’t condemned then
Antigua famous fi drugs trafficking too a jus because them dnt get caught yet you chat too much fuck boy hati mentioned Bahamas mentioned an other country an a Jamaica you have pick for do u know how many cike come in from America an how many guns come from America on the street in Antigua why the US dnt tslk about it
The comparison that many here are making is disingenuous at best..the fact that the drugs that are sent to America from the Caribbean, are sent by Caribbean citizens, or at least from other countrymen, and the guns that are coming from America to the Caribbean, are also sent by Caribbean citizens that lives in America. So you all act like it’s americans that are sending all these guns to the Caribbean, it’s your very own people folks.
That’s the problem here..and the guns only becomes illegal in the hands of illegal people, because the police and government certainly have guns as well, and when they clap it on these so-called thugs in the streets, what then, are we now blaming America for those guns as well?
Not unless y’all are saying that guns should be outlawed period?
Put the blame where the blame should go..and that’s what Biden is saying. Americans are not the ones who are sending back all these guns to the Caribbean. And remember, a gun only becomes illegal in the hands of an illegal holder.
SLEEPY JOE and Limpy Joe nack 1 head!
The common principle of business is at play Sleepy Joe, as in SUPPLY & DEMAND.
The North American and European CULTURES, especially, those of PONCO – People Of No Color aka as Caucasians, Pinky, White People cannot live, be productive and thrive without their DRUGS & ALCOHOL. This is the DEMAND aspect of the equation; therefore, to meet the DEMAND, there must be a SUPPLY.
Joe would know, since, his son Hunter is one such, or one such customer and is a convict.
What Sleepy Joe is doing by singling out the Caribbean and leaving out many Towns and Cities in North America is no different, than what Donald Trump did when he singled out the Haitians in Springfield, Ohio.
Unless, and until the North American and European Culture, of PONCO – People Of No Color STOP(ain’t gonna happen no time soon) DEMANDING their regular fixes of DOPE, there’ll be no hope to ‘stem the tide,’ which brings DOPE to their shores.
SUPPLY & DEMAND!
Jumbee Picknee aka Ras Smood
De’Ole Dutty Peg🦉Garrat_Bastard
Vere C. Edwards
Never read so much rubbish in my life! US President cited four Caribbean countries, including Jamaica as one of four major drug suppliers in these parts to the US. How and why does this cause that foul mouthed response from that clearly intellectually challenged “half-Jamaican” as he/she described.him/herself to spew its mess on the Givernment and people of Antigua? Antiguans are NOT responsible for exporting drugs to the US! Jamaica, perhaps, but not Antigua. I do not dispute the possibility of guns being imported from the US by “our own people” as far as Antigua and Barbuda is concerned. The great US cannot even control the trafficking of guns within its own borders. Just look at the thousands of its citizens that are murdered and maimed each year including children in school shootings because of their failure to effectively contain the flow of gun possession and use. Direct your shameful venom to President Biden and his fellow Americans for facilitating the proliferation of drugs and guns in the region. We in Antigua and Barbuda were once a safe and peaceful community before the contamination of its borders by guns, drugs and…………
Hegemony and white privilege have these leaders of the west crazy, it’s like a lobby to take monies from the treasury to fight drug around the world instead a stopping their white privilege citizens from doing it internally, the dealers in the USA are part of Congress etc. do you think the FBI don’t know the dealers in the USA? I remembered when a tornado hit a state leaving it devastated, the news anchors literally showed people shaking and trembling going into remission because the drugs weren’t available because of the devastation, it’s as though the news reporter was sympathetic and wanted help to get the people drug flowing, so the continued drug fight by the USA is saying white is right but the workers who are none white that getting the drugs to the white people is the sin. The Caribbean is under the hegemony of the USA and most major business in the Caribbean is own by them, they use us as a playground, let me tell Biden we don’t want their white people using our Caribbean islands as a conduit for their drug addiction anymore.
America is blaming others for its failure to control rampant drug abuse, if there is no demand there will be no supply. America is the largest consumer of illicit drugs in the world and I guess it is the fault Jamaica, Haiti and others and we dare not blame blame America for its rampant drug abuse. America must start working within its borders to control their drug abuse problem and stop blaming other countries. They can start by controlling their southern border. They have forced countries in the region to be IRS agents now they want them to be DEA agents and we as the a***hole countries we truly are will sit and do nothing…