Info system be set up for drugs

The National Drug Abuse Control Council, NDACC, in collaboration with the Inter-American Observatory on Drugs, is working towards establishing a national information system on illegal narcotics. According to Ornel Brooks, Executive Director of NDACC, the proposed network is just another step in building mechanisms necessary to combat illicit drugs. Once established, international organizations and government departments will not only get data on what work is being done in Belize, but they will be able to share information and experiences.

Ruth Connolly, Representative, CICAD

“Everyone needs information. You need information on where you want to send your child for school, so you look up schools. You might need information on medicine, you need to find someone or something in the library or a book that will tell you what you want to know. What we are trying to do is to find what information on drugs exists in Belize and make it available to everyone that needs it. That is more difficult as it sounds because maybe you have a very good professional in the Ministry of Health that has done a good research study that could help Mr. Brooks at the National Drug Abuse Control Council, but the two of them don’t know that the other exist. So what we are trying to do is to set up a system so that once information is produced it can go through a process which will make it accessible to everybody.”

Ornel Brooks, Executive Director, NDACC

“As it now stands, there is substantial amount of data in various organizations and government departments, but the way we are functioning there is no connectivity in collation and analysis and dissemination. And so in effect, our efficiency level have been very, very low.”

“We want to inform the public as much as possible and the international community about what’s occurring in Belize. I don’t think that secrecy helps. The more informed people are, the better they will be able to facilitate and assist us in the process of both supply and demand reduction.”

23 participants from various government departments and organizations are attending the seminar. Brooks says at the end of the meeting they will look to implement the recommendations brought forward.