IF THEY are not already doing so researchers at one of our universities need to undertake with some urgency a study of why so many, primarily young women, are prepared to put their lives at risk to smuggle cocaine in their bodies to the United Kingdom.
We suspect that of all the motivations that could prompt these women to undertake so dangerous an enterprise greed must be very low on the list. Rather we suspect that the Public Relations Officer for the UK customs and excise at London airports, Shona Lowe, is right in her assertion that the people who do this are desperate.
We now have the chilling statistic that ten people have died since the start of the year while attempting to smuggle cocaine, which they had ingested. In recent weeks forty-one Jamaicans have been held at airports in the UK and found to have cocaine in their bodies. More than 150 of these so-called drug mules have been caught since the start of the year.
It would seem that there is some substance to the theories about large quantities of drugs being backed up in the local system as a result of increased surveillance in the United States following the tragic events of September 11. It is also evident that greater co-operation between the local and the British police is producing results.
According to the news reports drug smuggling from Jamaica is thought to account for half of the cocaine on the streets of the UK and has been blamed for increasing gun crime in London. But what is to be done about these young women who are allowing themselves to be used as drug mules? If as suggested desperation is the factor which drives them that is not likely to change until there is a significant upturn in the Jamaican economy, and with that the opportunity for them to find gainful employment.
Until that happens the Government should mount an education campaign to explain to the populace the risks that are involved in smuggling drugs.
The opinions on this page, except for the above, do not necessarily reflect the views of The Gleaner.
