OAS General Assembly approves the MEM Hemispheric Report, 2005 - 2006
“The Hemispheric Report on the Evaluation of Progress in Drug Control, 2005 – 2006,” produced by the Multilateral Evaluation Mechanism (MEM), was adopted by the OAS General Assembly, which met in Medellin, Colombia during the first week of June.
The report addresses the collective progress made in the region in confronting the drug problem and offers a comprehensive review of efforts to control the demand for and supply of drugs in the hemisphere.
Based on the OAS member states’ national reports, published in February 2008, the Hemispheric Report considers the level of institutional strengthening in the region, efforts to reduce the demand for and supply of drugs, and other measures to control this phenomenon.
In the Fourth Evaluation Round, during which this report was published, the MEM made a total of 453 recommendations to member states, focused on improving the control of pharmaceutical products, international cooperation, and actions to control money laundering.
The Inter-American Drug Abuse Control Commission (CICAD), which oversees the MEM, approaches the control of the global drug problem through institutional strengthening, which facilitates international cooperation through balanced efforts to reduce both the demand for and supply of illicit drugs.
The Anti-drug Strategy approved by CICAD in 1996 and by the OAS General Assembly in 1997, recognizes that the transnational, interconnected nature of illicit drug trafficking makes it impossible for a single State to resolve the drug problem alone. This Strategy states that countries should establish a multilateral environment in which anti-drug strategies, objectives and progress evaluation can be addressed in a cooperative manner, in order to combat the negative impact of the drug problem.
The creation of the MEM through a Summit of the Americas mandate is the result of CICAD’s efforts to encourage and strengthen multilateralism, increase coordination and facilitate dialogue in order to combat the drug problem.
The MEM has been operative for 10 years and has been established as a multilateral tool to measure the progress and identify weaknesses of the OAS member states in the application of their anti-drug policies, with the objective of recommending concrete, realistic steps toward overcoming those weaknesses.
More information about CICAD activities are available at the
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