Inter-American Drug Abuse Control Commission (CICAD)

PROJECTS
Area  Inter-American Observatory on Drugs (OID) / Research and Analysis
Project Name The Human, Social and Economic Costs of Drugs in the Americas
Start Date/
Duration		 May 2002-May 2005
Location Barbados, Chile, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Mexico, Uruguay
Beneficiaries  Barbados, Chile, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Mexico, Uruguay
Participating Institutions The University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey /Robert Wood Johnson Medical School; the Canadian Centre on Substance Abuse (CCSA), the Bureau for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement (INL) at the United States Department of State; the National Council on Substance Abuse (NCSA) of Barbados; the Consejo Nacional Contra Estupefacientes (CONACE) of Chile; the Instituto Costarricense sobre Drogas (ICD) and the Instituto sobre Alcoholismo y fármacodependencia of Costa Rica;  la Comisión Salvadoreña Antidrogas (COSA), and La Fundación Antidrogas (FUNDASALVA) of El Salvador; Centro de Planeación para el Control de Drogas of Mexico; and La Junta Nacional de Drogas of Uruguay
Budget  US$1,000,000.00
Donors Government of the United States of America

Government of Canada
Project Description   The purpose of the Cost Program is to develop a methodology that will provide a framework through which OAS member states can measure the economic impact that drug use has on their societies.  Its primary goal is to do this in a way that is both simple and economically feasible.  The strategy is to develop a series of inter-related projects that will allow the countries to produce estimates on cost impact in a variety of social sectors such as health, criminal justice, welfare, industry, and labor enabling them to examine the impact of drugs in scientifically valid terms and use that knowledge to formulate sound, research-based policy.  Armed with specific cost data countries can then make rational decisions about where to target scarce government resources.  More importantly, by understanding where money is being invested and the costs related to those investments, decision makers can then devise strategies to reduce those costs. 

T Presently there are four pilot countries (Barbados, Costa Rica, Mexico and Uruguay) participating in the development of the CICAD methodology. he methodology is divided into a series of indicators stratified by level of difficulty.  Each country must systematically gather and validate the data corresponding to each indicator in order to produce valid cost estimates.  In addition there are two countries (Chile and El Salvador) who have committed themselves to following and testing the CICAD methodology that has been developed thus far.

The impetus for this project began with Recommendation 20 of CICAD’s Multilateral Evaluation Mechanism (MEM), Hemispheric Report 1999-2000, and also the Summit of the Americas in Quebec City in May of 2001, where CICAD received a mandate to “develop within the framework of CICAD, a mechanism to measure to human, social and economic costs of drug abuse.” 

 
Objectives

 By Fall 2004

  1. All four pilot countries will have completed the basic level indicators, and begun gathering data on the advanced level indicators; 
  2. Chile and El Salvador will finalize their studies on the basic level indicators, and present plans to gather information on the advanced level indicators; 
  3. Pilot countries will present the first cost analysis reports to the CICAD Commission.

By Spring 2005, Summit of the Americas:  

  1. CICAD will produce and publish the Research Manual for the Cost Program documenting the final methodology;
  2. Complete costs studies in four pilot countries, partial cost studies in at least Chile, El Salvador and at least additional country in the Hemisphere;
  3. Comparative analysis, analysis of lessons learned and policy implications of final results;
  4. Present a plan to continue expanding the Cost Program to the rest of the countries in the Hemisphere, with recommendations on additional areas of costing research to be undertaken by CICAD.
Links  Link to the Cost Manual on the OID website

Link to the Cost Program data management page http://cicad.europe.webmatrixhosting.net/