Organization of American States (OAS)
OAS Presents New Report on the Progress of Drug Control in the Americas
Jul 14, 2011 - 5:54:10 PM

The Inter-American Drug Abuse Control Commission (CICAD) of the Organization of American States (OAS) today published its latest report on the progress of drug control in the region, containing 350 recommendations for countries facing this problem, of which 38 percent involve control measures, 28 percent demand reduction, 24 percent supply reduction, and 17 the strengthening of institutions.

The report recommends countries to strengthen their anti-drug policies in the following areas: controlling illicit traffic, pharmaceutical products, money laundering, and ratifying international conventions recommended by the Multilateral Evaluation Mechanism (MEM); the implementation of programs of prevention and drug abuse, in addition to evaluating and expanding coverage of existing programs. Furthermore, Member States are advised to establish national registries of public officials formally accused and sentenced for illicitly trafficking in drugs.

“This new MEM report and above all the recommendations contained in it are an essential reference for all those involved in designing drug policies in our Hemisphere,” OAS Secretary General José Miguel Insulza said.

“The inter-pares evaluation mechanism gives force and legitimacy to the MEM, and constitutes an excellent example of how the OAS decisively contributes to finding substantive meeting points for countries to solve the problems they face and that are of concern to our people, and specifically in this phenomenon that causes so much harm to countries of the region,” the head of the hemispheric organization added.

The OAS Secretary for Multidimensional Security, Adam Blackwell, who oversees the workings of the CICAD, highlighted that “the Commission’s report highlights the need to face one of the weakest points in most of the countries of the region, and that is controlling the sale of drugs through the Internet.”

Ambassador Blackwell added on this important point that the CICAD recommends “the implementation of research and training activities related to the prevention and control of illicit trafficking in pharmaceutical products and other drugs on the Internet that allow for the identification of the national needs at the normative and operative levels.”

The document also highlights that, according to epidemiological studies conducted by 33 countries between 2006 and 2009, marihuana is, after alcohol and tobacco, the drug of highest consumption in the Hemisphere by the population in general, and particularly the young population.

Regarding supply reduction, the report indicates that during 2006 to 2008, “the total number of illegal drug laboratories rises to 37,900, of which more than 27,000 correspond to drugs of organic origin (mainly cocaine) and more than 10,000 correspond to synthetic drugs (mainly methamphetamines).”

The MEM is an instrument for measuring the activities against drugs conducted in the 34 Member States of the CICAD. This measure is conducted through the elaboration of national and hemispheric evaluation reports on drug control. The reports produced within the MEM process are written by government experts named by the Member States. Each country is entitled to a head expert and alternate experts; each country has one voice and experts don’t participate in evaluating their own country.

The full text of the report is available here.

For more information, please visit the OAS Website at www.oas.org.

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