CICAD evaluates regional performance on drug front

At the Inter-American Drug Abuse Control Commission’s meeting in Colombia in November 2007, the delegates took the pulse of the hemisphere’s health regarding the drug problem by reviewing and  approving evaluation reports on the performance of 34 member states of the Multilateral Evaluation Mechanism as well as examining hemispheric trends in drug trafficking and abuse.  Because the event took place in Santa Marta, the participants were able to witness first-hand how drug trafficking has impacted the Colombian countryside. [Photo: above, Guillermo Francisco Reyes González, CICAD Chair  and Colombian Vice Minister of Justice, speaks to the delegates. CICAD Executive Secretary James Mack and Vice Chair María Soledad Weinstein (Chile) share the podium.]  Read the full story...

Special Report: CICAD surveys Alternative Development options

At its forty second regular session of CICAD, delegates from 26 member states discussed the options available for implementing a rural development strategy that steers growers away from illicit crops like coca, poppy and marijuana. Past and present initiatives, including CICAD's own efforts, were examined to extract lessons to be learned. International partners contributed their experience. Increasingly, the international community sees Alternative Development not only as a means to reduce illicit drug supply but as an instrument to reinforce integral, sustainable development in communities and territories affected by illicit crops growth and as part of the strategy against poverty and inequality. Several proposals will be evaluated by an Expert Group on Alternative Development that was mandated by the Commission. Read the full story...

Leveraging chocolate in the development formula

Cacao has been one of the most attractive cash crops that fit into a rural development formula in the Andes because it has an established world market, is environmentally friendly and is a native perennial crop, but it has failed to match expectations up to now. CICAD is participating in a new public-private alliance to tackle the obstacles to regional success in Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru. [Photo, on the right, cocoa beans dry in the sun.] Read the full story...

Concept paper: getting a handle on alternative development

For a long time, experts could not even agree on what to call it. Now, more importantly, debate is moving towards how to deliver it in difficult environments. The CICAD Executive Secretariat prepared a white paper to frame the discussion at the Santa Marta meeting,  based on the belief that only with a mature understanding of the issues and strategic options can the public policy debate advance. Several specific proposals for future action were put forward for the Commission's consideration. Available in PDF format (84 kb), the article is online...

Loading knowledge in the circuit

CICAD has brought online the Spanish language version of the Alternative Development Knowledge Network (ADKN).  Backed by nearly 20 international and national organizations in Asia, Europe and the Americas, the ADKN provides knowledge-sharing and communication tools for people working in rural development, especially in remote, drug-crop producing and highland regions. The network focuses on "sustainable agricultural production systems that can balance productivity and environmental conservation and how to connect farming communities to modern markets." The project started out in English. [Photo: on the right, Bolivian farmers produce organic bananas for domestic and international consumers.]

CICAD turns over geographic information system to Bolivian government

The Generalized Land-Use Evaluation and Management Tool — or GLEAM — is a remote imaging-based information system that generates spatial and agro-economic information about current land use and determines the real and hypothetical scenarios for soils as well as the economic feasibility of specific crops. Developed originally by CICAD for a project in Peru in 1998, the system has been used most recently in Bolivia for the formulation, execution and monitoring of agricultural projects, as well as decision making on agricultural policy and development.  At the end of 2007, CICAD handed over the responsibility for the GIS system to the Bolivian government for use in its rural development programs.

News and activities

First class of drug counselors graduate in El Salvador program

Salvadoran President Elias Antonio Saca underscored the importance of the CICAD-sponsored training program for addiction counseling when he handed out certificates to the first graduating class. [Photo: on the right, President Saca addresses drug addiction counselors in San Salvador] At the January 18 ceremony, 310 drug counselors from non-governmental and governmental treatment centers received their certificates. The program in El Salvador was administered by FUNDASALVA, non-governmental organization specialized in drug dependency prevention, treatment and rehabilitation, and consisted of 160 hours of coursework in best practices in prevention, clinical standards, and managerial and leadership skills. The program is currently getting underway in Guatemala where 43 non-governmental treatment centers have expressed interest in sending their staff for training.  See the Observer No. 18 feature for more details about the program.

Specialized training on detecting illegal Internet sales

The challenge of illegal distribution via the Internet of internationally controlled licit substances is like nothing else confronted by law enforcement in the region. These transactions, which can be for painkillers without a medical prescription or a facade for selling counterfeit Viagra pills, disappear into overseas money accounts, front companies and anonymous post office boxes. In response to this growing problem and in partnership with Microsoft, CICAD delivered a series of five seminars in Chile, Colombia, El Salvador, Jamaica and Mexico on the tools, resources and techniques needed to investigate the sale of drugs over the Internet.  These seminars trained more than 150 specialists drawn from regional law enforcement agencies.  Funding came from the U.S. Narcotics Affairs Sections (NAS) in the host countries and those governments sending participants.

Other CICAD activities

The forty third regular session of CICAD will be held in Washington, DC on April 30-May 2...  The European Union-Latin American and the Caribbean  Drug Treatment City Partnerships initiative has unveiled its website. Under CICAD's management, the program to share experiences of drug treatment at the local level will have its first forum in Santo Domingo, the Dominican Republic, April 2-5, 2008... The Multilateral Evaluation Mechanism (MEM) section is coordinating a preparatory meeting of the Intergovernmental Working Group to gleam lessons learned from the latest round, set for March 25-28 in Buenos Aires... 

Online Resources: Two perspectives on addiction

Alcohol, Gender, Culture and Harms in the Americas (69 pages, PDF format, 1.7 mb, also available in Spanish) is the final report of a multi-centric study carried out by the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO). The report covers studies in Argentina, Belize, Brazil, Canada, Costa Rica, Mexico, Nicaragua, Peru, Uruguay and the United States. The study confirms what the Inter-American Observatory on Drugs (OID) has also found in its own regional studies on drug use: "This new survey data highlight the importance of disaggregating sub-regional WHO data to the country level in order to see differences in consumption and corresponding risk of alcohol–attributable outcomes at the country level and thus inform country-specific alcohol policies capable of addressing the specific alcohol consumption profiles and problems." [Illustration: on the right, cover art of the report Alcohol, Gender, Culture and Harms in the Americas.]

HBO's series Addiction was awarded the 2007 Nancy Dickerson Whitehead Award for excellence in reporting on drug and alcohol problems, given by the Drug Strategies, a US nonprofit research institute. The documentary series is an insightful, sensitive analysis of the impact of drug abuse in the United States. It combines gripping personal stories of addicts and their families with the growing science of addiction studies by addressing several aspects: adult and adolescent addiction, treatment, aftercare, and stigma and discrimination.  A series DVD and a book are available online. The website has extensive resource materials, including video excerpts as well as a resource page. AddictionAction is an affiliated program to take the project's message out into communities. The project was backed by a partnership with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the National Institute on Drug Addiction, and the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, all of the United States.