DRUGS-CUBA: Massive Training Programme in Prevention

By Patricia Grogg Reprint | | Print |

Patricia Grogg

HAVANA, May 31 2001 (IPS) - The Cuban government is working to head off the spread of drug use through a massive training programme for professionals and public employees in prevention and the fight against drug use.

However, official sources insist that Cuba is not witnessing a “social phenomenon” of drug use, because this country is neither a consumer nor producer nation, nor a “transit point,” despite supposed “efforts” from outside to draw it into the international drug trade circuit.

According to the National Drug Commission, some 80,000 education, health and tourism officials, as well as leaders of social organisations, were trained in drug use prevention last year.

The Interior Ministry, meanwhile, has trained around 21,000 of its own employees and customs officials in the most advanced techniques for keeping drugs out of the country.

Of that total, 250 customs agents took courses with visiting experts from the anti-drug services of Canada, Spain, France and Britain.

Hundreds of prosecutors have also taken part in the training programmes, and some of them attended a course sponsored by the United Nations International Drug Control Programme (UNDCP) in the Dominican Republic.

Last year, that UN agency approved a nearly 1.3 million dollar assistance programme for Cuba.

The aid from the UNDCP “enabled us to boost our response capacity in the area of specialised training and in the acquisition of technical means,” said Jorge Reyes Vega, director of the National Drug Commission’s (CND) executive secretariat.

In statements to the Cuban press, the official said this week that the government’s efforts to keep Cuba off the drug trafficking circuit and to keep drugs from “taking root in the country as a social phenomenon” amounted to “a battle for the present and the future.”

Justice Minister Roberto Díaz Sotolongo, who is also the president of the CND, reported in March that the health services attended 280 cases of drug abuse last year in this Caribbean nation of 11 million.

Drug use is seen as a health problem here, rather than a crime, while the penal code cracks down harshly on those convicted of involvement in the drug trade and of smuggling narcotics into the country.

“The problem is not solved with jail terms, but the message is that drug traffickers will receive the heaviest sanctions, even capital punishment,” warned Díaz Sotolongo, who underlined that Cuba’s youth in general did not consume drugs, although he admitted that “there are some cases.”

For decades, drug use in Cuba was limited to a marginal presence of marijuana and the use of pills like amphetamines. However, sales of cocaine have gradually grown in recent years, often to meet the demand of foreign tourists.

Cuba is located along the route between the main drug producing nations and the United States, the world’s single biggest market for narcotics – “an awkward geographic situation for our country,” said Díaz Sotolongo.

The opening to international tourism and foreign investment, as well as the free circulation of dollars since 1993 have also driven up the risk of drugs penetrating Cuban society.

Although reports on consumption and sales of cocaine and its cheaper version, crack, in Havana began to emerge in the early 1990s, and have become more and more common in the past few years, official information or precise statistics are not available.

A local variety of crack cocaine, known as “cambolo”, costs 80 to 90 dollars per dose, similar to the cost of a gram of cocaine, and 50 dollars higher than in 1995.

Prices like that confine the use of such drugs to the highest- income sectors with access to abundant dollars. “Marijuana can be found much cheaper, and so can pills,” said a young man who refused to give his name.

According to official reports, nearly 12,000 tonnes of unspecified drugs were seized last year in Cuban waters, nearly 4,000 more than in 1999. Between the months of July and October 2000 alone, authorities confiscated over 1,700 kgs of cocaine and more than 4,100 kgs of marijuana.

Cuba has anti-drug cooperation agreements with 29 countries and ties to 12 anti-drug services in nations with which it has signed no accord.

Although it has no pact with the United States, collaboration on a “case by case” basis does exist. However, Cuban authorities consider that insufficient. “It’s impossible to fight drug trafficking in the Caribbean without Cuba’s participation,” said Díaz Sotolongo.

In its report this year on international cooperation in the fight against drugs, Washington praised the government of Fidel Castro for increasing its information-sharing on drug trafficking networks, which frequently use Cuba’s islets or keys for transferring merchandise to speedboats.