Article: OAS Commission Evaluates Regional Progress Against Illegal Drugs

02 February 2001

Article: OAS Commission Evaluates Regional Progress Against Illegal Drugs

National reports cite need for specific actions

By Lauren Monsen
Washington File Staff Writer

Washington -- The countries of the Americas "need to act quickly to implement recommendations" that have emerged from a new hemisphere-wide drug evaluation process, says Cesar Gaviria, secretary general of the Organization of American States (OAS).

Speaking at a February 1 news conference, Gaviria appeared with David Beall, executive director of the OAS Inter-American Drug Abuse Control Commission (known by its Spanish acronym CICAD), to announce the release of the 34 national reports describing the illicit drug situation in each of the OAS member states. The reports were produced under the Multilateral Evaluation Mechanism (MEM), a tool developed to measure progress against illicit drugs in the region.

Under the terms of the MEM, each of the 34 OAS member states appoints a drug-policy expert to help assess the nature of the drug threat in the other 33 countries. To ensure objectivity, national experts do not participate in their own country's evaluation.

"I want to emphasize that we are engaged in an ongoing process," said Beall. "The reports were just issued, the recommendations were just issued, and we don't have a reaction to them yet." The hemispheric report was released in September, he added, and the newly issued national reports will be presented at the upcoming Summit of the Americas, scheduled for April in Quebec City.

Asked whether the Bush Administration might consider the MEM as a likely replacement for the controversial U.S. drug certification process, whereby the United States confirms or denies a country's status as an ally in the fight against illegal drugs, Gaviria was quick to note that the two systems are fundamentally different. He predicted, however, that "this method will carry a lot more legitimacy [in the hemisphere] than the unilateral certification of the U.S. Congress." The MEM "is based on cooperation," Gaviria said, because it represents the work of all the participating countries -- and, unlike the U.S. certification process, it imposes no sanctions.

According to Gaviria, a major drawback of the certification process is its tendency to "create friction among countries." The MEM, on the other hand, "is independent of any decision taken by the U.S. Congress" and fosters a spirit of collaboration. "This strategy is not a tribunal; it respects the sovereignty of each state," he declared.

Many U.S. officials agree that the certification process can be antagonistic, and have openly championed the MEM system. "It will become increasingly apparent to policy people in the hemisphere that our national interests are better served by this evaluation mechanism than by a system based on confrontation," said Edward Jurith, acting director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy. "The new multilateral evaluation mechanism allows the nations of our hemisphere to address our shared drug challenges through cooperative efforts, dialogue, and shared expertise."

For evaluation purposes, "a whole set of standards and principles have been agreed on" by representatives from each regional government, said Beall. "It's also important that recommendations are periodically reviewed and renewed, so that they bear a contemporary relevance to what's going on" in any given country.

The CICAD decided to use 61 indicators to assess each country's successes and challenges, Gaviria told reporters. These indicators are divided into five main categories: national plans and strategies, prevention and treatment programs, reduction of drug production, law enforcement measures, and estimated cost of the drug problem. The new reports should help "define what each country can do to make our collective anti-drug efforts more effective," Gaviria said.

OAS officials concede that "some of the recommendations point to widespread deficiencies," which will be formally addressed at the April summit in Canada. The Summit Implementation Review Group, which met at the OAS recently to discuss the summit's Plan of Action, "is considering including hemisphere-wide mandates in three areas related to drugs: establishing financial intelligence units in every country to track drug-related transactions; creating a uniform system to measure social and economic costs of the drug problem; and raising funds for alternative development and demand reduction," the OAS said.

About 14 recommendations per country are included in the CICAD reports. Among the findings: 25 of 34 Western Hemisphere nations must strengthen their drug-use prevention efforts; 28 nations must implement a system to estimate drug consumption; and 29 nations must develop the ability to estimate the cost of their drug problem.

Whatever its particular circumstances, "every country needs to improve" its performance against illegal drugs, Gaviria concluded. The complete reports are available on the Internet at www.cicad.oas.org.