PM defends age-limit Bill, attacks PNM and Independent senators

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar is de­fend­ing the Gov­ern­ment’s de­ci­sion to raise the le­gal age lim­its for gam­bling, mar­i­jua­na, al­co­hol and to­bac­co, while launch­ing a scathing at­tack on the Op­po­si­tion PNM and In­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors who vot­ed against the leg­is­la­tion.

In a so­cial me­dia post fol­low­ing the Sen­ate’s pas­sage of the Bill, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the Gov­ern­ment bench vot­ed in favour of the leg­is­la­tion, while the PNM and In­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors vot­ed against it.

The Mis­cel­la­neous Pro­vi­sions (Al­co­hol, Cannabis, Dan­ger­ous Drugs, Gam­bling and To­bac­co) Bill, 2026 was passed ear­ly Wednes­day morn­ing by a 15-12 vote.

The leg­is­la­tion rais­es the le­gal age for al­co­hol and to­bac­co use to 21, while the min­i­mum age for gam­bling and cannabis use will be 25.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar crit­i­cised the PNM, ac­cus­ing the par­ty of fail­ing to sup­port mea­sures aimed at pro­tect­ing young peo­ple.

She al­so took aim at the nine In­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors, re­fer­ring to them as “scum­bag Pres­i­dent’s sen­a­tors” and ac­cus­ing them of op­pos­ing leg­is­la­tion in­tend­ed to ben­e­fit chil­dren and young peo­ple.

The Prime Min­is­ter said their po­si­tion was con­sis­tent with what she de­scribed as pre­vi­ous op­po­si­tion to leg­is­la­tion ben­e­fit­ing chil­dren, point­ing to their votes against ex­pand­ing the Chil­dren’s Life Fund.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the Gov­ern­ment would con­tin­ue to pass leg­is­la­tion aimed at ben­e­fit­ing law-abid­ing cit­i­zens and re­it­er­at­ed her com­mit­ment to pro­tect­ing young peo­ple.

She said the Bill will now be sent to the Pres­i­dent for procla­ma­tion and is ex­pect­ed to be op­er­a­tionalised in ear­ly 2027.