Special Issue: Tracking  Current
Trends
in
Drug Use
in the Hemisphere
The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) and CICAD,
together with the countries involved,
have joined forces to issue two major comparative studies on drug use
in the region: the most recent were a survey of households in six South
American countries (Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Ecuador, Peru and
Uruguay) and, in 2006, a survey of drug use by secondary school
students in nine South American countries (Argentina, Bolivia,
Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Paraguay, Peru, and Uruguay). In
addition, the Inter-American
Drug Observatory (OID), CICAD's statistics and research branch, is preparing comparative analysis
of drug use by secondary school students in 12 Caribbean countries and
a comparative vision of drug use in Central America that arises from surveys of students and households in
six Central American countries. Specialized methodologies for
studying drug use among university students and prison populations are also in the works.
None of this research would be feasible without the full cooperation
of each country's national drug commission and national drug
observatory.
The OID has been working
conscientiously to provide
appropriate tools and guidance for assessing drug use so that public
officials can formulate and evaluate public policy on the baiss of
facts and ensure that data from individual countries can
be compared across the region. In order for population surveys to be
truly useful, they must be consistent methodologically, geographically
and chronologically.
These comparative reports and
other instruments provide a baseline for detecting and understanding
drug abuse trends in the Americas. Policy makers are receiving
responses to fundamental questions about vital issues, based on
objective, scientifically sound and verifiable evidence. As might be
expected when responding to the intial questions, these studies
generate more questions and the need for more in-depth studies, and further analyses.
Guidelines for Public
Policies on Drugs in the Subregion: First Comparative Study on Drug
Consumption and Associated Factors among the General Population
(15-64 Years Old) (Elementos orientadores para las
políticas públicas sobre drogas en la subregión:
primer estudio comparativo sobre consumo de drogas y factores
asociados en población de 15 a 64 años)
Spanish (PDF, 94 pp, 2.33 Mb)
Youth and Drugs in South
American Countries: A Challenge for Public Policies (Jóvenes
y drogas en países sudamericanos: un desafío para las políticas
públicas).
Available only in Spanish (112 pp., PDF, 3,2 Mb)
Executive Summary in English (27 pp., PDF, 150 kb).
 CICAD
Takes New Steps to Strengthen Partners
In the face of the dynamic shifts in drug use and trafficking in the
hemisphere over the past few years, CICAD has launched a series of initiatives that leverage
its unique assets
to support its regional collaborators. Read the
full story...
Inhalant Abuse Looms as a Threat to South American Youth
The 2006 comparative study
of drug use among secondary school students in nine South American
countries focused mainly on illicit drug use. But a
more detained review of the data revealed that many regional youth face the risk of
damaging their minds and bodies by abusing inhalants. CICAD's Marya
Hynes Dowell and Pedro Mateu-Gelabert, a sociologist of
the National Development and Research
Institutes Inc. (NDRI), shift the focus to glue
sniffing and other vapors that lead towards addiction. It's not just a problem
of street children. Read the
full
article...
Troubling Trends Spotted
At the latest meeting of the Latin American Epidemiology Work Group
(known by its Spanish acronym
REDLA), several
new manifestations of drug abuse were identified. REDLA,
comprised of drug researchers from Latin America, seeks to increase
the information available to the national drug commissions.
Read the full article...
 Community-Based Surveillance of Drug Use Adds Valuable Perspectives on Trends
CICAD's OID suggests that its members use their information
collection systems to create early
warning systems for tracking new drugs trends. OID collaborator James Hill explains how the
United States developed a national network relying on existing
information sources in communities. Read the
full article...
Regional
Drug Observatories to Gather in Guatemala
The OID is convening the biannual meeting of Latin American national drug observatories for October 20-24 in Antigua, Guatemala, with the support of the Spanish Agency for International Cooperation
for Development (AECID), which will
provide its training facilities there. The meeting will deal with the
functioning of national drug observatories and their objectives,
methodological aspects of conducting studies, new projects underway, and the
problem of synthetic drugs.
 OID, NIDA
and UNODC Award Research
Grants
With support from the
National Institute on
Drug Abuse (NIDA) of the United States
and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), CICAD has recently awarded 18 grants for
epidemiological research by postgraduate university students in
member states: Argentina (2), Bolivia (1), Brazil (4), Chile
(2), Colombia (4), Ecuador (1), Mexico (1) and Uruguay (3). These
junior scholars will be making use of existing survey databases in
coordination with national drug commissions.
The applicants sent in their research proposals in late 2007. A new round
will be announced in the second half of 2008. Check the
OID site for
more information.
Web Portal of County Profiles on Drug Statistics Comes Online
The OID has created an online application that makes information
about diverse indicators of drug supply and demand available to the public. The instrument,
Drug Statistics Profiles By Country, draws on multiple sources
to provide data on social and population factors, drug demand, and drug supply and drug control.
News and Events
 Drug
Treatment City Partnership Will Allow 44
Municipalities to Exchange Best Practices
The Drug Treatment City Partnership, funded by the
European
Commission and executed by the Inter-American Drug Abuse Control
Commission CICAD/OAS, kicked off its activities with an
inter-regional forum held in Santo Domingo, the Dominican Republic,
on April 2-5. The three-year program aims to link up local
governments from the European Union and Latin America and the
Caribbean to exchange and explore innovative approaches to dealing
with drug abuse treatment and rehabilitation as well as an
alternative to incarceration for drug dependent persons who commit
certain types of non-violent crimes. Read the
full article...
 MEM 2005-2006 Evaluations Available Online
The
Multilateral Evaluation Mechanism (MEM) issued its
hemispheric
report for the 2005-2006 evaluation round, which was
presented at the OAS General Assembly in Medellin,
Colombia in early June. The report assesses progress in
the areas of institutional development, demand
reduction, supply reduction and control measures across
the Americas. The 34 individual country reports for the
same evaluation round are also
available online.
Spanish Government Extends CICAD Partnership
 CICAD and the Spanish government have renewed their long-standing
collaboration in developing human resources and institutions with
the launch of a new, three-year (2008-2010) program called SAVIA, an
acronym from its Spanish title Salud y Vida en las Américas
(Health and Life in the Americas). The project seeks to provide
direct support to local demand reduction initiatives in Bolivia,
Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Venezuela, plus Uruguay, which joins
the predominantly Andean group this year. Participating
municipalities will be acquiring capacity to detect new trends of
drug use and conduct locally tailored prevention and treatment
programs. The initative has the support of the Spanish International
Cooperation Agency for Development (AECID)
and the National Drug Plan of Spain (PNSD).
Expert Group on Integral, Sustainable and Alternative Development
Mandated by the latest CICAD meeting,
the
Expert Group on Integral, Sustainable and Alternative
Development will meet on September 24-26 in Lima, Peru to look at
how producer organizations can be used to promote licit crops in
areas prone to producing coca, examine the role that they can play
in niche markets, and develop the support framework necessary to
ensure their success. The experts will also make a field trip to Tarapoto where they will see first hand Peru’s own growers
associations, which have concentrated on cacao, coffee and other
perennial cash crops.
 Online Resources: EMCDDA
The European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA)
was founded in 1993 to facilitate multinational coordination on drug
issues by promoting a common information framework for dealing with
the issues of drugs, abuse, addiction, and related matters across the
European Union. Based in Lisbon, Portugal, it coordinates 30
national monitoring centers to gather and analyze country data
according to shared data collection standards. It issues
an annual report that summarizes the latest drugs in use,
prevalence of drug use, requests for treatment, drug-related deaths
and infectious diseases. It has a strong online presence, including
publications, a
best
practices portal, a
compendium of European and national legislation and regulations,
and
drug profiles of all 30 member states. Since the signing of a
formal memorandum of understanding in 2000, the EMCDDA and CICAD
have collaborated on many initiatives, mainly through
coordination, methodological cooperation and exchanging experts. Wolfgang Götz, the EMCDDA
director, and Paul Griffiths, the scientific coordinator, visited CICAD in June 2008.
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