No. 4 Year 4
Fourth Quarter 2006

---

• Spanish Version
• Previous Issues
• Who we are
• Statistics
• National Drug Control Orgs.
• National Observatories
• International Organizations
• Contact OID

 

CICAD and the University of the West Indies unveil online program for drug abuse prevention and treatment

The University of the West Indies (UWI), through its Distance Education Centre (UWIDEC), is launching an on-line program in Substance Abuse Prevention and Treatment in the Caribbean. It is receiving applications for the one-year, 10-course program until June 30. Academic activities will start on September 4 for those accepted in the program. Read the full story...

How CICAD came to life

The first CICAD Executive Secretary Irving Tragen recently spoke several times with CICAD staff about the early days of the Commission and the coalition of political and social forces that brought it into existence. Here is a condensed version of his portrayal of that foundational era. Read the full story...

CICAD and European Commission Join Forces to Address Consequences of Drug Dependency

CICAD and the European Commission are launching a joint initiative to pair up cities from Europe with counterparts in Latin America and the Caribbean, forming partnerships to improve the treatment and rehabilitation of problematic drug users, and address other aspects of drug dependency at the municipal level. Read the full story...

Featured Contributor: Spain

The government of Spain has been a long-time collaborator with CICAD in building and strengthening the national institutions involved in drug abuse prevention since 1997. Currently, it is working on a decentralization project in the Andean countries to help municipal and regional governments develop locally tailored responses to the drug threat. Read the full story...

June 26: International Day against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking

The slogan of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) anti-drugs campaign to be launched on  June 26, the International Day against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking, is "Do drugs control your life? Your life. Your community. No place for drugs." The slogan will be used for three years and focus on different aspects of drug control: drug abuse in 2007, drug cultivation and production in 2008, and illicit drug trafficking in 2009. Read the full story...

News

Passing Judgment on Evaluations

The Commission delivered an 80-page report entitled Multilateral Evaluation Mechanism Achievements 1997-2007 to the General Assembly in June. This report is available on the CICAD website. Prepared as a collaboration between the Government Expert Group (GEG) and the CICAD's MEM support section and reviewed by the Commission, the document identifies the main accomplishments in first three evaluation rounds (1999-2000, 2001-2002, 2003-2004), for each country and the hemisphere as a whole. It also assesses the recently revised procedures, guidelines and indicators  being implemented in the Fourth Evaluation Round (2004-2005). Copies are available online in Spanish and English.

Caribbean Observatories to meet in September

A major gathering of Caribbean drug specialists will take place in Grenada September 10-14  Under the auspices of CICAD’s Inter-American Observatory on Drugs (OID) and the Caribbean Community (CARICOM). The first half of the meeting under the OID's lead will focus on translating relevant epidemiological research findings into government policies and practices. On the last two days, the CARICOM Secretariat will be coordinating on demand reduction activities that are being funded by the European Community, with support from CICAD's Demand Reduction section. Read the full story...

Other CICAD Activities

Commission: The Commission met in Washington, D.C. for its forty-first regular session in early May to approve the Multilateral Evaluation Mechanism Achievements Report 1997-2007 which was forwarded to the OAS General Assembly. The Commission also discussed the rising threat posed by illicit sale of controlled substances over the Internet and the efforts towards controlling chemical substances in international commerce. All reports and presentations given during the CICAD meeting are available online. The next CICAD meeting will take place in Santa Marta, Colombia, November 27-29 and will focus on alternative development, new trends in drug trafficking and consumption, and the review and approval of the MEM country reports for the 2005-2006 evaluation round.

Expert Groups: The MEM's Governmental Experts Group will meet on September 17-28 in Washington, DC, to put the finishing touches on the country reports of the Fourth Evaluation Round...  The annual meeting of the Expert Group on Maritime Narcotrafficking will take place in Panama, July 16-20...  Meetings of the Expert Groups on Chemical Precursors and Pharmaceutical Products will be held in Mexico City September 17-20... The Expert Group on Money Laundering Control will be meeting in Santiago in mid-November (tenative date).

Educational Development and Research: A meeting of the 44 schools of nursing, public health, medicine and education participating in CICAD's university partnership program will take place in Cartagena de Indias (Colombia), August 13-17. There will be training on how to apply an international health perspective on drug issues. The meeting will also coordinate on how to implement the EDR university program interdisciplinarily. The meeting will also have the support of the Pan American Health Organization and the government of Spain. 

For up-to-date information about conferences, workshops, and courses, please check the CICAD web calendar.

Online Resources: The Science of Addiction

New advances in science offer convincing evidence that addiction is a brain disease -- a disease that is accompanied by disruption of the mechanisms responsible for generating, modulating and controlling an individual's cognitive, emotional, and social behavior. The book discusses the reasons people take drugs, why some people become addicted while others do not, how drugs work in the brain, and how addiction can be prevented and treated. This new publication from the U.S. National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) is designed to help policy makers and the general public to better understand and educate others about the problem of drug abuse. The PDF is only available in English and is 2.2 megabytes.

Explorando la Mente (8 Booklets-Spanish): This bilingual series encourages young teens to reject drug use by helping them understand the effects of drugs on the brain. In each booklet, Sara Bellum/Clara Mente, a budding science student, takes students on a scientific journey to learn about the brain's complex responses to specific drugs, including hallucinogens, inhalants, marijuana, methamphetamine, nicotine, opiates, steroids, and stimulants. This series is published by NIDA and  available in English (Mind Over Matter); each separate topic is available as a PDF brochure.

Centro de Información y Educación para la Prevención del Abuso de Drogas (CEDRO), a Peruvian non-governmental organization, with almost three decades experience working on drug issues, maintains an online course for drug prevention promoters, as well as extensive online reference material. In addition to drug abuse prevention and treatment, CEDRO has also acquired experience in alternative development, working in the Upper Huallaga River valley, the main illicit coca-growing area in the country.