The National Drug Control Agency (DNCD), headed by Major General Rafael Radhames Ramirez Ferreira, has launched a drug awareness campaign and decried the fact that drugs were now an “issue of national security”. In his remarks, quoted in today’s Hoy newspaper, the General said that there was a “dramatic” increase in the use and abuse of children in drug trafficking and consumption. The high-ranking official said that drug use is “hidden within families as if it were a case of leprosy.” General Ramirez Ferreira talked to Hoy reporter Elias Ruiz Matuk and went as far as to recount how the DNCD is going though a process of “re-engineering” in order to become cleaner and more efficient. Ramirez also revealed that Colombian hit men are in the Dominican Republic carrying out drug trafficking related operations involving “the settling of accounts”.