According to him, their consultation with the country’s health authorities indicates that “no evidence was provided to show that some died as a result of Kush in the country.
The DLEAG has taken the issue of what has been described by many as Kush drugs with utmost seriousness and attention.
“We are proactive in our approach in both the gathering of intelligence and scientific research to better understand this substance and advice on realistic policy and strategic measures,” he said in yesterday’s exclusive interview with The Point. “Already, an expert committee is constituted comprising stakeholders from health and law enforcement with a view to study the substance based on scientific evidence.”
Reacting to reports suggesting that a man from Yundum had died after allegedly overdosing himself with Kush drug, Gassama said: “There is difference about people saying this person had a medical history of taking Kush drugs or not. However, we were not shown the deceased’s death certificate that indicates that he died as a result of smoking Kush,” he told our reporter.
“We have taken that professional approach with the desire of ensuring that we come up with good policies that are geared towards combating drugs. The taskforce is expected to come up with scientific evidence based conclusion that will be used as policy input for the country. The standard set and adopted around the globe is evidence based drug policy making, thus it will be unsafe to base public policy on drug solely around assumptions.
Drug policy, Gassama emphasised, must be evidence based. “You can’t get up to decide policy on drugs based on assumption. This is what DLEAG as a professional entity is reluctant to do. We want to ensure that any policy decision taken on any substances is purely based on evidence. Right now our lab technicians are busy with the research. We are also in contact with our partners in the region, some Kush samples were sent to Senegal for advance laboratory analysis in order to establish elementary composition of the substance.”
“We share the concern of the general public and we are also taking note of the claims around by several people representing different interest groups on the Kush related issues. However, as the statutory agency established leads the effort of The Gambia government on drug and related crimes, we are right now focusing on designing holistic and multi-sectoral approach to this issue. We beg not to be distracted by propagandist and disinformation campaigners,” he posited
“I can tell you that a lot of efforts are currently on-going with a view to understand what we are fighting on in order to be able to determine the most appropriate steps to be taken,” he said.
As a government, we must work together with the principle of collective responsibility. “You can’t drive state policy using public assumption. Public policy generally must be backed by evidence in order to serve a good purpose for the public. If that is not done, then public resources will be wasted on things that would not serve any good public policies purpose.”
