WASHINGTON (CMC):

The United States Department of State has released a damning report on narco-trafficking in the Caribbean.

In its International Narcotics Control Strategy Report 2008, released Friday, the department identified Jamaica as a "major drug transit country and the Caribbean's largest producer of marijuana and marijuana derivative products."

It added that the seven Eastern Caribbean countries - Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, Dominica, Grenada, St Kitts and Nevis, St Lucia, and St Vincent and the Grenadines - are "vulnerable" to drug trafficking from South America to markets in the United States and Europe.

In addition, the department said Haiti is a "major transit country for cocaine and marijuana from South America and the Caribbean, respectively".

The report said, cooperation between Jamaica and US government law enforcement agencies remained strong in 2007, resulting in drug seizures, arrest of drug-traffickers, and disruption of drug organisations on the island.

But it said the "ambitious legislative agenda" initiated in 2007 only resulted in the passage and implementation of the Proceeds of Crime Act and the new Anti-trafficking law.

"Despite numerous well-documented corruption scandals, there were no prosecutions of high-level officials," the report said, noting that new Prime Minister Bruce Golding has promised various security initiatives, such as a consolidated anti-corruption National Investigative and Intelligence Agency to tackle Jamaica's "pervasive public corruption."

The report said Jamaica is a major drug transit country, due to its difficult to patrol coastline, more than 100 unmonitored airstrips, busy commercial and cruise ports, and convenient air connections.

'Guns for ganja' trade

"In 2007, an increase in murder and other violent crime coupled with a thriving 'guns for ganja' trade between Jamaica and its neighbours, that was abetted by systemic corruption within the police, customs service, and judicial system, continued to tax an already over-burdened law enforcement and judicial system," the report said.

It added said that, while there are no official estimates of marijuana hectarage in The Bahamas, cultivation of marijuana by Jamaicans is a "continuing trend".

It said the majority of marijuana seized there in 2007 was in plant form grown by Jamaican nationals on remote islands and cays of The Bahamas. The report said cocaine arrives in the Bahamas via go-fast boats, small commercial freighters, or small aircraft from Jamaica, Hispaniola and Venezuela.

The report said go-fast and sport fishing vessels transport marijuana shipments from Jamaica to The Bahamas, which are then moved to Florida in the same manner as cocaine.