Govt moves to raise legal age for alcohol, tobacco to 21

More than a year af­ter sig­nalling in­ten­tions, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar says the Gov­ern­ment will be mov­ing to strength­en leg­is­la­tion aimed at pro­tect­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go’s young peo­ple from the harm­ful ef­fects of sub­stance abuse and gam­bling.

In a Face­book post yes­ter­day, Per­sad-Bisses­sar an­nounced that the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) Gov­ern­ment will bring leg­is­la­tion to Par­lia­ment to­mor­row seek­ing to amend sev­er­al laws gov­ern­ing dan­ger­ous drugs, al­co­hol, to­bac­co, cannabis and gam­bling.

The pro­posed Bill, ti­tled “An Act to amend the Dan­ger­ous Drugs Act, Chap. 11:25, the Reg­is­tra­tion of Clubs Act, Chap. 21:01, the To­bac­co Con­trol Act, Chap. 30:04, the Chil­dren Act, Chap. 46:01, the Liquor Li­cences Act, Chap. 84:10, the Gam­bling (Gam­ing and Bet­ting) Con­trol Act, 2021 (Act No. 8 of 2021) and the Cannabis Con­trol Act, 2022 (Act No. 10 of 2022),” is ex­pect­ed to in­tro­duce sig­nif­i­cant changes to the ex­ist­ing le­gal age thresh­olds.