Speaking at the opening of the 34th International Drug Enforcement Conference (IDEC) held in Punta Cana, President Danilo Medina appealed to the nations that drive the demand for drugs to take concrete steps to reduce consumption of illegal drugs in their countries. He called drug consumption a public health issue and called for exploring new strategies to combat drug trafficking and consumption. The conference is organized by the Dominican Drug Control Agency (DNCD) in coordination with the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). Some 110 countries are attending the conference.
Medina said that in the last four years there has been an increase in the amount of drugs seized in direct relation to the increase in the demand of production and consumption in the region.
As reported in El Día, President Danilo Medina warned that a stop has to be placed against consumer nations because it is there where the strategies for drug trafficking are planned and where 90% of the profits are received. “The conclusion is clear: more drugs are being produced and more are being consumed. And that is very dangerous,” he said. He highlighted that each metric ton of drugs has the potential to cause 28 violent deaths in Central America and 553 for overdose in the United States aside from strengthening the criminal networks with dozens of millions of dollars.
Data from the Inter-Institutional Security Force coordinated by the United States, indicate that while in 2013 in Latin America and the Caribbean 132 metric tons of cocaine were confiscated, by 2016 the amount of seized cocaine shipments had increased to 282 tons, more than double the amount in 2013.
Talking about the drugs that reached their destination, President Medina said that it has been calculated that in 2016, an average of 2,461 tons of cocaine managed to avoid detection by the authorities. That means that almost 90% of illegal drug shipments hit the streets in the US and other countries in the region, Medina called this “a chilling number” that should give all of us pause.
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Listin Diario
Presidencia
El Dia
TCWeek
17 May 2017
