18
Twenty-fifth Commonwealth Parliamentary Conference
international agencies were to be effective. Involvement of high officials and even governments was also felt to be a factor.
The consensus seemed to be that drug trafficking was not only an international probl but an international business, and that led to the world's failure to control it.
Many felt that punishment deterred traffickers. In Singapore, anyone caught carrying more than 15g of heroin received the death sentence. Jamaica, on the other hand, was seeking to decriminalise the personal and private use of marijuana.
Two countries described addict rehabilitation. In Singapore, drug users were put away for six months, and for two subsequent years were urine tested to ensure they were still off drugs. If not, they went in for another six months. The British system said, in effect, “You are addicted. Come in. We will try to cure you, but we will not let you suffer unduly and, if you must have this drug, you will have it at a proper place." It had not wiped out the problem completely, but it had cut big business out of the illicit drug trade and there were only about 5,000 addicts in the whole country as against, say, 150,000 in New York City.
PANEL D
POPULATION GROWTH AND ECONOMIC ASSISTANCE TO DEVELOPING COUNTRIES
Panel members: Shri Sankar Ghose, MP, India (Chairman) Mr Kenneth Baker, MP, United Kingdom Hon. Dr Sevanaia Tabua, MHR, Fiji
Before the conference began, the chairman conveyed the sympathy of delegates to families bereaved by the tragedy in Antarctica.
A panellist opened the discussion by observing that although it had taken 1 millon years for the population of the planet to reach 4 billion, the addition of a further billion was predicted within 11 years, and it was estimated that by the turn of the century the population of the world would be 6.25 billion. Since the eighteenth century the birth rate and death rate in northern countries had been declining, but although the death rate in the poorer southern countries was declining the birth rate was not. Nearly three-quarters of the world's population lived in Asia, North Africa, and Latin America.
Such an explosive growth in population could be expected to result in: first, enormous pressure on the world's food resources; secondly, the need for approximately 500,000,000 new jobs, with all that that implied for the economies of developed and developing countries alike; and, thirdly, increased migration, the effects of which were already being felt. Partial economic growth, increased family literacy, and improved child care had resulted in some moderation in population growth, Sri Lanka being a very good example, but the excessive populations of countries such as India constituted a major hindrance to development, in spite of comprehensive family planning programmes.
The only solution for some countries lay in growing more food or reducing the population by means of birth control, but some countries found birth control repugnant for religious reasons, and the growing of more food could not be undertaken without considerable assistance from the developed countries. It was the moral duty of the richer countries to assist the developing countries, and a panellist, noting the success of the Marshall Plan, proposed a 10-year assistance programme based on the allocation by developed countries of a percentage of their revenue.
The problems had been acknowledged. The World Bank had recommended a higher standard of living, improved income distribution, and population control; and the United Nations World Population Conference at Bucharest had emphasised the importance of greater assistance by developed countries to developing countries. The assistance at present available to developing countries came to about $400,000,000 per annum, and the Colombo Conference had called for a target of $1 billion to be reached by 1981. It was the view of one panellist that economic assistance should be given at lower rates of interest and with fewer strings attached.
It was important for developing countries to be aware of the assistance they could obtain and of the need for economic co-operation among themselves. Since 1973, Trinidad and
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