Remarks by James F. Mack, Executive Secretary, Inter-American Drug Abuse Control

Commission (CICAD), Organization of American States

To the U.S. National Association of Drug Court Professionals

Anaheim, California

June 2009

I am delighted to speak to you on behalf of the Inter-American Drug Abuse

Control Commission (CICAD), a technically autonomous body of the Organization of

American States. And I want to thank you for the invitation to address you today.

CICAD is an international, inter-governmental body that is part of the

Organization of American States (OAS). The OAS is one of the oldest international

organizations in the world – it was founded in 1890 as a trade bureau and postal union

among the countries of Central and South America and the United States. Over time, it

evolved into the Organization of American States, whose charter and mandate are very

similar to those of the United Nations -- peace, development, democracy, and human

rights, and the new threats to human security such as terrorism and drug trafficking.

My organization, CICAD, the Inter-American Drug Abuse Control Commission,

was founded in 1986. Its goal is to promote multilateral cooperation and coordination

in the Americas on the drug problem. The idea was to turn unconstructive debates

over whether consuming or producing countries were responsible for the drug problem

into acceptance by all our state members that the problem and the means to address it

are a shared responsibility, requiring the cooperation of all.

In addition to being the Western Hemisphere’s policy body and forum on drug

issues, CICAD’s Permanent Secretariat, which I have the honor to direct, provides

technical assistance to OAS member states to strengthen their institutions, strategies

and programs to prevent and treat drug abuse, to control drug production of and

trafficking, and to reduce the traffickers’ ability to launder the proceeds of their illegal

trade.

CICAD’s drug demand reduction program focuses on improving substance abuse

prevention and treatment in our member states, largely by setting quality standards,

and by training health care personnel and teachers.

Over the last two years, thanks to a grant from the European Union, CICAD has

started to promote the concept of drug treatment courts in Latin America and the

Caribbean.

At a recent seminar that CICAD organized in Chile, South America, judges,

prosecutors and health care personnel from fourteen countries from both sides of the

Atlantic examined the feasibility of establishing treatment alternatives to incarceration

for drug-dependent offenders, one form of which are drug treatment courts.

Most of the countries present at that seminar, including Chile, El Salvador,

Jamaica, and Mexico, expressed great interest in setting up drug courts. Mexico has in

fact done a great deal of preparatory work, and hopes to have a drug court up and

running in Monterrey by the fall of this year, with CICAD support. I am delighted to see

our colleagues from Mexico here today. We look forward to working with you and

NADCP to promote drug courts in the state of Nuevo Leon and elsewhere in Mexico.

At the seminar in Chile, countries that already have drug courts spoke of how

they had overcome obstacles and public skepticism. They stressed the need for good

evaluations and research on the outcomes of drug treatment court programs in order to

demonstrate their effectiveness.

CICAD’s initiatives on drug courts in Latin America and the Caribbean will build

on the work that NADCP has done here in the United States. West Huddleston and

Carson Fox have spoken to the CICAD Commission -- comprised of the Western

Hemisphere’s drug czars -- on several occasions, and have helped persuade OAS

member states to examine the possibility of setting up drug courts in their countries.

I am extremely pleased to announce that we shall shortly be signing a framework

agreement with NADCP so that we can join forces in promoting drug courts around the

Western Hemisphere.

Let me also acknowledge the pioneering work of the International Association of

Drug Treatment Courts, and of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. Judge

Paul Bentley, drug court judge in Toronto and founder of the International Association

of Drug Treatment Courts, and Kristian Holge, of the United Nations Office on Drugs and

Crime in Colombia, have been key to expanding the drug court concept beyond the

United States.

Next week, CICAD is organizing a workshop in Ghent, Belgium, together with

judges from 17 countries, to work on drug courts. The city of Ghent has a drug court,

and some other European jurisdictions have similar alternatives to incarceration for

drug-dependent offenders.

Thank you very much for this award, which I accept on behalf of CICAD and its

member states, whose strenuous efforts to prevent and treat drug abuse are honored

here today. We in CICAD look forward to working with NADCP in the years to come on

very concrete measures to train drug court personnel, and to help promote around the

Western Hemisphere alternatives to incarceration for drug-dependent offenders.

anniversary celebration of drug courts in the United States. Thank you and I look

forward to a long and fruitful cooperation.