Regional Drug Control Activities : paper prepared for Rotary International's Model CARICOM Youth Summit, December 2000

THE CARIBBEAN REGION

COUNTRIES: The Caribbean Region encompasses the following twenty-nine (29) jurisdictions:

Fourteen (14) Caribbean Community (CARICOM) Member States. Antigua & Barbuda, The Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Dominica, Grenada, Guyana, Haiti, Jamaica, St Kitts & Nevis, St Lucia, St Vincent & Grenadines, Suriname and Trinidad and Tobago;
Two (2) Independent Non-CARICOM Countries - Cuba and Dominican Republic;
Six (6) British Overseas Territories - Anguilla, Bermuda, British Virgin Islands (BVI), Cayman Islands, Montserrat (also a CARICOM Member State) and Turks & Cacios Islands;
Two (2) Netherlands Antilles Territories- Aruba & Curacao;
Three (3) French Departments - French Guiana, Guadeloupe & Martinique; and
Two (2) USA Commonwealth States - Puerto Rico and US Virgin Islands

LANGUAGES: Four (4) languages, viz. English, French, Spanish and Dutch

POPULATION: 37,175,254

GEOGRAPHICAL DATA : Total land area - 727,215 km²
Total land and sea area - over 3 million km²
Largest distance North/South - approx. 1,600 miles (2,560 km²)
Largest distance East/West - approx. 2,800 miles (4,480 km²)

INTRODUCTION

In an effort to combat the abuse and trafficking of illicit narcotic drugs and psychotropic substances in the Caribbean, Member States of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) have become parties to several international conventions and multilateral plans of action. The latter includes the Barbados Plan of Action of May 1996; the Action Plan of October 1996 for the implementation of the Anti-drug Strategy in the Hemisphere; the Bridgetown Plan of Action emanating from the May 1997 Caribbean/US Summit; and the European Union/Latin America/Caribbean (EU/LA/Caribbean) Action Plan following the First EU/LA/Caribbean Summit of June 1999 in Rio de Janeiro.

The commitments made by these plans cover a wide range of activities which demand significant resources, both human and financial as well as a capacity to coordinate and implement them. The lack of resources and inadequate institutional capacity to coordinate and implement some of the activities in several of the smaller countries within the Community have adversely affected the speed of implementation at the national level. This has belied the high level of political commitment on the part of the Heads of States and Governments in the fight against drugs.

The joint CARICOM/United National Drug Control Programme (CARICOM/UNDCP) Missions which have been undertaken to review the status of implementation of the various Action Plans have revealed among other things, two significant features - a lack of institutional capacity to implement particularly demand reduction activities and a lack of coordination at the national level. Little evidence exists of effective participation by Caribbean youth in the various areas of drug control activities, which may well be a contributory factor in the incapacity of the various institutions.

The objective of this paper is to submit a situational report of the Regional Drug Control Activities to facilitate consideration by the Rotary's Model CARICOM Youth Summit to identify areas of youth participation in the framework for national, regional and international cooperation and coordination to combat the growing abuse of and trafficking in illicit narcotic drugs and psychotropic substances in the Caribbean Region.

THE THREAT OF ILLICIT NARCO-TRADE AND ITS IMPACT ON THE CARIBBEAN

The illicit narcotic trading activities in the Caribbean which facilitated drug abuse are centered on the following:

Cocaine Trafficking and
Marijuana Production and Trafficking

COCAINE TRAFFICKING THROUGH THE CARIBBEAN

According to the estimates of United Nations Drug Control Programme (UNDCP) Caribbean Coordination Mechanism (CCM), based in Barbados, about half the cocaine produced in South America, approximately 310mt, was trafficked through the Caribbean in 1998. About 35% or 140mt arrived on mainland USA and 65% or 65mt in Europe. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) believes that 10 -15% of the cocaine on the Canadian market transited the Caribbean.

Even though illicit drugs are transported over land, sea and air, the majority is smuggled in bulk by sea, either in maritime containers or by vessels. The main trafficking routes for cocaine through the Caribbean are as follows:

Colombia/Chile/Bolivia/Peru - Lesser Antilles - Central Caribbean (Jamaica, Haiti, DR, Cuba, The Bahamas and Puerto Rico) - USA/Canada;
Colombia/ Chile/Bolivia/Peru - Venezuela/Brazil - Eastern Caribbean/The Guianas - USA/Canada/Europe;

Smuggling by means of "Go-Fast" boats (high-speed marine vessels) can deliver illicit drugs from Colombia to mainland USA overnight.

MARIJUANA PRODUCTION IN THE CARIBBEAN

Herbal cannabis or marijuana is cultivated in all the Caribbean States. Over the past ten years, tremendous effort has been made at eradication. Outstanding in this regard has been Grenada and Belize. Intelligence has revealed that the major producers for exportation are currently Jamaica and St Vincent and the Grenadines. In July 1998, nearly 5 tonnes of herbal cannabis were seized from a vessel at Rotterdam Seaport in Netherlands traveling from Jamaica en route to Budapest.

DRUG ABUSE

The use of illicit drugs has become a social problem with implications for health, crime, community disintegration, the work place and all aspects of development within Member States. Undoubtedly many factors have contributed to the problems of drug use and ultimately abuse in the Caribbean. These include:

High levels of illiteracy and a general lack of social and other skills to deal with the problems of daily life (poverty, unemployment, stress, lack of leisure time activities. etc)
Industrialization, urbanization and mass media communication resulting in changing socio-cultural values and norms of youth;
easy availability of the deadly substances with psychedelic, analgesic and relaxing properties - potential source of relief for all kinds of stress, misery and pain. Synthetic drugs from North America and Europe have been surfacing in the Caribbean;
Recently, there has been a growing lobby for the decriminalization of the use of marijuana. In some jurisdictions, there are "Marijuana Farmers Associations" while in others, there are calls for its decriminalization on religious and other cultural grounds.

The Impact of the narco-trade has none-the-less left its "A-B-C Trade Mark" on the Caribbean - increasing demand resulting from ABUSE and ADDICTION which generates BIG BUSINESS and consequential money laundering and other criminal activities which leave in their wake CORRUPTION and growing fear of CRIME. The majority of inmates of our prisons are there for drug related crimes.

CARIBBEAN DRUG COORDINATION POLICY

The development of a Caribbean Regional Drug Control Programme has, in the main been fuelled by tremendous support from the International Community whose primary interest has understandably been to prevent the flow of illicit narcotics drugs from the producing countries in South America through the Caribbean to mainland North America and Europe. This support has been manifested in the proliferation of a variety of organisations and agencies within the Region essentially serving the interests of their creators.

This situation resulted in a marked lack of coordination. This lack of coordination from the Caribbean perspective was addressed by the Caribbean Heads of Government of the Caribbean who established the Inter-Governmental Task Force (IGTF) on Drugs in December 1996:

"The Inter-Governmental Task Force (IGTF) on Drugs, charged with the responsibility of formulating an integrated regional counter-narcotic policy, covering all aspects of the drug trade (production, distribution, consumption and money-laundering), and the principal elements of which would include the incorporation of relevant initiatives and a regional approach to the conclusion of treaties with third states on counter-narcotic matters"

REGIONAL DRUG CONTROL ACTIVITIES

The Regional Drug Control Activities, based on commitments from the various international conventions and action plans, have in the main focused on the following:

Intelligence/Information sharing
Criminal law enforcement
Customs law enforcement
Anti-money-laundering activities
Treatment and rehabilitation
Education
Establishing the requisite legislative framework
Mutual Legal Assistance Treaties
Maritime Cooperation
Strengthening of the criminal justice system
Improvement of forensic sciences services
Drug law enforcement training
Precursor chemicals control
Regional Justice Protection
National Drug Councils
Regional Coordination

THE EVOLUTION OF REGIONAL DRUG COORDINATION

Intra- and inter-regional cooperation in drug control activities saw the evolution of coordination at the vertical or specialised level. With initial support from extra-regional sources, several specialised coordinating agencies were established. These now include the following:

Association of Caribbean Commissioners of Police (ACCP)
British Military Assistance Team (BMAT)
Caribbean Customs Law Enforcement Council (CCLEC)
Caribbean Financial Action Task Force(CFATF)
Caribbean Epidemiological Centre (CAREC)
Caribbean Institute of Alcohol/other Drugs (CARIAD)
Caribbean Island Nations Security Conference (CINSEC)
Project Management Office (PMO)/Steering Committee
Regional Forensic Science Training Centre (RFTC)
Regional Training Centre in Martinique (CIFAD)
Regional Drug Training Centre (REDTRAC)

General or horizontal coordination has been undertaken at the Regional and international levels. The principal organisations now include:

United Nations Drug Control Programme (UNDCP)
European Commission Drug Control Office (ECDCO)
UK Department For International Development (DFID)
US Caribbean Action Plan Coordinator
OAS/CICAD
CCM Task force Meetings - Representatives of the entire donor community;
CARICOM Secretariat {CCS/Regional Coordinating Mechanism (RCM)}
Inter-Governmental Task Force (IGTF/RCM).
US/Caribbean Summit Joint Committee on Justice and Security (SJCJS)
EU/LA/Caribbean Coordination/Cooperation Mechanism on Drugs.

GENERAL OBSERVATIONS

A review of the effectiveness of the current approach in coordinating and implementing the regional drug control activities revealed several interesting factors. Some of these are as follows:

At the national level, coordination of the various sector activities proved very difficult. The separation of powers within the Ministerial System required direct involvement of the highest political levels to ensure national drug coordination, which in many instances has not been forthcoming.

The autonomous professional cultures which developed independent professional pride and in some cases insularity among the law enforcement agencies (Police, Customs, Coast Guards and Military) required organisational innovation to ensure an integrated approach law enforcement. The matrix concept of an inter-disciplinary Task Force is rapidly gaining currency within the region.

The International Community's focus has been on supply reduction and not demand reduction as a result there has been significant development in the areas of intelligence gathering, law enforcement training, anti-money laundering activities and maritime cooperation, while relatively less has been achieved in the area of demand reduction which has been the stated focus of the Caribbean.

This lack of balance between supply and demand reduction from the external assistance perspective further widened the gap between demand and supply reduction at the national level making a national integrated effort more difficult.

Most of the donor aided initiatives in the fight against drugs have been seen as an attempt to isolate the drug problem in terms of a war against drugs or a moral crusade against substance abuse, not identifying it as a complex of social, economic and political problems. The Region's Strategy must therefore address the entire range of root problems including poverty, disintegrating communities and social structures, social marginalization, power disparities and the erosion of state legitimacy.

REGIONAL DRUG CONTROL POLICY FRAMEWORK

Mission

In an attempt to better direct the Region Drug Control Activities, the IGTF agreed on the following Mission Statement:

"Member States shall collaborate at the national, and international levels in order to implement an effective policy framework for eliminating the demand for and supply of illicit narcotic drugs and psychotropic substances."

Approach

The approach shall include the following:

Establish National Drug Councils (NDCs) which will be responsible for formulating and monitoring the implementation of integrated national drug-control policies;

Institutionalise a regional coordinating system to ensure the timely implementation, monitoring and reporting of all the regional drug control activities;

Facilitate the development of integrated Demand Reduction Programmes;

Collaborate with the International Community in ensuring a balanced and timely implementation of the various Plans of Action.

POSSIBLE ISSUES FOR DISCUSSION

NATIONAL DRUG COUNCILS

Given that NDCs are responsible for formulating and monitoring the implementation of integrated national drug control policies, the Model CARICOM Youth Summit may wish, among other things, to:

Consider the possible composition of the NDC in each Member State, given the organisational differences which exist in Member States;

Suggest a possible chairperson of each NDC;

Suggest the frequency of meetings of the NDC's;

Identify ways in which the views of young people, who are the principal stakeholders, can be addressed at the level of NDC's; and

Suggest the methods of feed back, if necessary, of the activities of NDC's to all stakeholders.

DEVELOPMENT OF INTEGRATED DEMAND REDUCTION PROGRAMMES

From the above analysis on Drug Abuse and subsequent General Observations, one would agree that any drug control strategy must address the entire gamut of root problems. Using the issues raised under Drug Abuse and General Observations, the Model CARICOM Youth Summit may wish, among other things, to:

Identify areas for targeted intervention for integrated demand reduction activities;

Suggest ways in which young people could participate in the integrated demand reduction activities; and

Offer an opinion on the issue of decriminalization of marijuana.

REFERENCES

Griffith, Ivelaw L. Drugs and Security in the Commonwealth Caribbean. In Journal of Commonwealth & Comparative Politics - London: Frank Cass, 1993.

Security and the Drug Trade. In Caribbean Affairs, 7(4) September - October 1994, p.17-27

Drugs in the Caribbean: An Economic Balance Sheet. In Caribbean Studies, 28 (2) July-December 1995. p.285-303

Liverpool,F E. Introductory Address to Seminar on Regional Anti-Crime Strategy.

OAS/CICAD. Recent trends in Drug Abuse Prevention. CICAD/doc.899/97 dated 15 September 1997.

UNDCP Caribbean Regional Office. Drug Trends in the Caribbean (1998-1999).