NATIONAL director of Jamaica Youth for Christ Rev Herro Blair Jr says local churches have to unite against the dangerous Molly situation that is dominant among Jamaican youth today. Blair complained that far too often individual churches complain about not having the necessary funding to tackle the various issues plaguing the country.

“The church has to take a stance against anything that’s affecting our young people. We have to take a stance because the young people are the future, and we have to take a stance because if we don’t get to their minds to show them and have them experience what true life can be about, there’s [none of] that for them tomorrow,” Blair told the Jamaica Observer in an interview, a part of the original documentary, Molly Predicament which is now available on the Jamaica Observer’s official YouTube channel.

Dr Ahmed Soliman Hegazy, clinical cardiologist at the Heart Institute of the Caribbean (HIC), explained that Molly is a “very dangerous” drug.

He said it is a raw form of Ecstasy that can lead to severe consequences on the heart and the brain.

This is more reason for swift action, according to Blair.

“Then our society becomes further and further distant, so we have got to work hard today to save tomorrow. We’ve got to reach out in every possible way. We’ve got to make up our minds to work together. It cannot be five churches trying to five different things; we need five churches working together. At the end of the day, if we are not competing they will be watching something else,” he warned.

He noted, however, that the illegal drug issue among youngsters is not new. Blair, who served as prison chaplain in the Cayman Islands and Jamaica, said it is a long-standing problem.

“I came here 14 years ago and I realised that drugs was a very big part of the lives of youngsters. In fact, I did a survey in the prison and found that there was a transference from youth to adulthood,” he said. “Children in the juvenile system that were there for drugs continued throughout until they were in the adult system. It led me to believe that we were not focusing in the right way on bringing change in their lives.”

And so, Blair said he is not surprised by the current Molly situation. Instead, he said he is alarmed.

As a result his efforts, “have been to really get to the minds of the parents to become more aware of what is coming home and also what is taking place in the lives of their children while they are on the Internet. So, the interaction between friends, the interaction between adults who they don’t even know, and the fact that children are no longer at home but they are out partying late at nights, they are on the road all different hours of the day — this means that people have access”.

Blair told the Observer that when he speaks with former prisoners and inquire about how they ended up in the system, they often relate that is was because they were on the “street corner” and during that time “a don or somebody” would go and ask them to buy something, give them money, and tell them to partake in certain activities.

“It’s the same process now where gangsters or dons or others are involved in interaction with these children on the road and telling them about what’s available. They say, ‘You can share this with your schoolmates, you can share this with your classmates and get money.’ I remember a principal called me to a school saying that the children were selling ganja cake and that it was indeed affecting some of them,” he lamented.

That’s why it is important, he added, to regularly check up on youngsters.

“Here’s the problem: If they feel we are not concerned about the changes in their lives then they [will] continue to do what they’ve been doing — and worse. And when that begins to happen, then we get into a position where we begin to lose them in the home and we begin to lose them in the school and at church.

“When they’re home alone and don’t have anything to do, here comes TikTok, here comes Facebook, here comes all these other things, and here comes the drugs. Once the drugs come, oftentimes with it will come with sex and other things, which create other issues — if not just plain sex, then rape and other issues that will affect the lives, the mind and mentality of these youngsters.”