Beckles: Govt misleading public on proposed age increases and penalties

Akash Sama­roo

Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les says the Gov­ern­ment is mis­lead­ing the pub­lic by pre­sent­ing its pro­posed in­creas­es in the le­gal ages for al­co­hol, to­bac­co, cannabis and gam­bling pri­mar­i­ly as mea­sures to pro­tect young peo­ple, ar­gu­ing that the leg­is­la­tion goes much fur­ther by cre­at­ing new of­fences and im­pos­ing sig­nif­i­cant­ly tougher penal­ties.

“It is deeply mis­lead­ing to sell this as sim­ply a Bill to ‘pro­tect young peo­ple’ by rais­ing age lim­its, when the leg­is­la­tion goes much fur­ther, cre­at­ing new of­fences, ex­pos­ing young peo­ple to fines of up to $50,000, in­tro­duc­ing fixed penal­ty no­tices and re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion re­quire­ments, and dra­mat­i­cal­ly in­creas­ing penal­ties across mul­ti­ple laws,” Beck­les said.