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Background:
Over the past decade, the Inter-American Drug Abuse Control
Commission (CICAD/OAS) has
been challenged to adapt to a rapidly changing drug enforcement and prevention environment. CICAD has significantly expanded its efforts to promote
regional cooperation and coordination on drug issues, and undertaken new directions in action programs to strengthen
the capacity of individual member states to prevent and treat substance
abuse and to combat illegal drug production and trafficking. With broad recognition and a growing
partner base, CICAD has
matured as a forum for candid discussion of drug issues, objective
evaluation of progress, and targeted improvement of the hemispheric
response to drug problems in the region.
A Hemispheric Strategy for a
Hemispheric Problem
Broadening CICAD's Mandate to adapt to
New Challenges
The CICAD Commission
Model Regulations
Multilateral Evaluation Mechanism
Institution-Building
The Inter-American Observatory on
Drugs
Drug Control, Supply Reduction and
Money Laundering Control
Alternative Development
Demand Reduction
Partnerships
Although the 1990s
opened as a new beginning after an era of military and political violence
in the region, by the middle of the decade, new patterns of criminal
violence were emerging, clearly exacerbated by an increase in
transnational drug production, trafficking, and consumption.
While the big drug cartels had been largely dismantled, new smaller
trafficking organizations sprang up to replace them, developing new
smuggling methods and routes to transport their deadly product to market
as law enforcement authorities closed down old ones.
At the same time, the clear separate lines between consumer,
transit, and producer countries began to blur, a phenomenon which was
captured in 1996, when the OAS General Assembly adopted the CICAD
Commission’s proposed Anti-Drug Strategy of the Hemisphere, which
incorporated for the first time the acceptance of the concept of hemispheric
shared responsibility for drug control.
During this period, the public throughout the hemisphere became
more broadly concerned about the dangers of drug trafficking and drug use,
and their leaders, at the 1990 Cartagena drug summit, showed renewed determination that something should and could
done about it.
In
response to developments since 1994, CICAD has broadened its original
anti-drug mandate to include new substances of abuse (such as synthetic,
designer, and prescription drugs), money laundering, firearms trafficking,
maritime cooperation, port security, community policing, drug-related
youth and gang violence, alternative sentencing for minor drug offenses,
and, most recently, consideration of transnational organized crime. This expansion reflects CICAD member states' awareness that
substance abuse and drug trafficking problems are firmly tied to other
serious socio-economic and criminal challenges which cannot be effectively
targeted in isolation. The
Multilateral Evaluation Mechanism (MEM) Indicators and the Inter-American
Observatory on Drug's data-gathering instruments have been modified to
address new challenges identified by the CICAD Commission.
The changing needs of the member states to confront shifting drug
issues have called for new thinking and new actions in the past 10
tumultuous years. The future
will continue to test CICAD's ability to adapt its diverse efforts to the
Hemisphere's evolving needs.
-
Negotiated
the Anti-Drug Strategy in the Hemisphere (1996), based on its founding
document, the Rio Program of Action (1986); and carried out innovative
action programs to give substance to the concept of shared regional
responsibility for drug control;
-
Brought
together semi-annually senior counter-narcotics officials in the Americas
to examine changing drug trends, and to develop new policy and program
responses in the region;li>
-
Responded
to new and emerging challenges to drug control, such as organized crime,
smuggling of weapons used in drug crimes, new synthetic drugs, terrorism,
gang violence, trafficking in persons, and the need for criminal justice
and policing alternatives;li>
-
Developed
model regulations to help member states control:
- chemical precursor substances (1990)
- money laundering offenses connected to illicit drug trafficking (1992)
- international firearms trade and proliferation (1997)
- followed up by multiple revision processes to update regulations to
remain consistent with evolving international standards and new control
methods;
- Executed
a 1998 Summit of the Americas mandate to establish a standardized system
to measure periodically the evolution of anti-drug efforts by the 34 CICAD
member states, and of the region as a whole, the only such peer-based drug
evaluation system in the world. The Multilateral Evaluation System (MEM) , established
in 1999, produces periodic public progress reports and recommendations by
country and for the region as a whole, and responds to member state
requests for targeted assistance;
- Defined,
through 86 evaluation indicators, the components of a comprehensive
national drug control program and hemispheric system;
- Assisted
25 CICAD member states to draft National Drug Plans that cover the full
range of law enforcement, demand reduction, supply reduction, and research
program areas according to the specific needs of each, facilitating the
integration of often complex, multi-agency counter-drug efforts;
- Strengthened
national drug councils’ capacity to become policymaking and executing
bodies to coordinate national anti-drug systems;
- Is
helping to develop drug information systems or observatories in 21 Latin
American and Caribbean drug councils to carry out standardized data
collection, analysis and dissemination to provide policy-makers with a
sound scientific basis for their decisions;
- Published
an annual compendium of supply-side drug data (CICDAT) that has become the
hemisphere’s basic source of such information.
- Developed
and supervised standardized drug use prevalence (SIDUC) studies in 19
member states, training local professionals for continued demand-side data
collection;
- Is well advanced in executing a 2001 Summit of the Americas
mandate to develop and pilot test by 2005 a scientific methodology to
estimate the cost the drug problem imposes on
countries in the hemisphere;
-
Implemented
a new model for alternative development in the Andes and the Caribbean
to bring farmers into licit agricultural production through a
combination of actions, including
modern
land titling, the creation of farmers’ organizations, the introduction
of high-yielding disease resistant varieties of cacao and banana, and
the development of organic crop management, harvesting, and marketing;
-
Developed
a satellite-based mapping tool (GLEAM) to permit governments to evaluate
land use in areas of illicit cultivation and design alternative
development interventions;
-
Developed
standards of care for treating drug dependence in 15 member states;
-
Developed
guidelines for building a comprehensive drug treatment system at the
national level;
-
Incorporated
content on drug prevention, addiction, treatment, and social
reintegration, as well as outreach and research activities, into the
nursing curriculum of 15 universities in Latin America, now expanding to
public health and public education programs;
-
Created
an on-line graduate degree program in drug addiction studies for full-time
professionals in the region to knowledgeably respond to drug issues in
their places of work;
-
Trained
street youth counselors, gang intervention workers, criminal justice and
prison officials, family prevention workers and healthcare professionals
in skills for confronting substance abuse in their clients.
In these efforts, CICAD has worked closely with many international
partners, such as the Inter-American Development Bank, the United Nations,
the European Commission, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the
National Science Foundation, the Spanish Ministry of the Interior, the
Royal Canadian Mounted Police, and the Governments of Japan, France,
Israel, Korea, and Turkey, to name a few, in order to together build a
strong and united front against the constantly evolving substance abuse
trends and international drug markets that jeopardize all aspects of life
in our societies.
James
F. Mack, Executive Secretaryy
Inter-American Drug Abuse Control Commission
Organization of American States
1889 F St. NW
Washington, D.C. 20002
www.cicad.oas.org
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