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OAS Co-Organized Workshop on Drug Addiction Tribunals in Mexico

The Organization of American States (OAS) co-organized this week a workshop on the addiction treatment courts in Cuernavaca, Mexico, to train Mexican public officials on this innovative process that gives a second chance to drug dependent offenders.

The workshop, coordinated by the Executive Secretariat of the Inter-American Drug Abuse Control Commission (CICAD) of the OAS, in collaboration with the State of Morelos, the Superior Court of Morelos, the National Commission on Addictions (CONADIC), and the Under Secretariat for Prevention and Citizen Participation (SEGOB), and with the financial support of the Government of the United States, included the participation of 140 judges, prosecutors, defense attorneys, treatment providers, as well as representatives from the states of Durango, Morelos, México, and Chihuahua and the Federal District.

During the inauguration of the event, the General Director of the National Center for Prevention and Control of Addictions of Mexico, Raúl Martín del Campo, highlighted that “people with addictions in conflict with the law, in the majority of cases are not evaluated in terms of the base problem that led them to commit the crime for which they are detained.”

For his part, the General Director of Citizen Participation for Social Prevention of Violence and Crime, from SEGOB, Xiuh Guillermo Tenoria Antiga, said that “within SEGOB we support this process of training in collaboration with the OAS, but it is definitely the responsibility of the federal entities to bring about the actions necessary for the success of the program.”

In terms of the figure of the addiction treatment courts, the OAS Representative in Mexico, Ambassador Anibal Quiñonez, highlighted that “this is a model that seeks solutions to a problem that affects institutions, individuals, families and communities. If it is not addressed in a multidisciplinary way, it will be hard to find a solution.”

The act of inauguration was presided over by Magistrate Nadia Luz María Lara Chávez, President of the Supreme Court of Justice of Morelos; Xiuh Guillermo Tenorio Antiga, General Director of Citizen Participation for the Social Prevention of Violence and Crime, SEGOB, Mexico; Carmen Fernández Cáceres, General Director of Centers for Youth Integration A.C., Mexico; Alfonso del Valle, Coordinator of the Program for Legal Reform, INL, of the Embassy of the United States in Mexico; and Ambassador Anibal Quiñonez, OAS Representative in Mexico.

The OAS, through the CICAD of the Secretariat for Multidimensional Security, works to promote addiction treatment courts under judicial supervision as an alternative to imprisonment in the Americas. This model gives a second chance to drug dependent offenders (people who have committed a crime and at the same time are dependent on drugs, or who have committed a crime to pay for their addiction). This method of treatment under judicial supervision seeks to break the cycle of crime by treating the cause that underlies the crime, drug addiction, considered from the point of view of public health, along the lines ratified by the OAS member states at the recent Special General Assembly on drugs held in Guatemala.

The state of Nuevo León has already been carrying out this model for five years. The states of Mexico and Morelos opened their first ATC in 2014, and the state of Chihuahua is in the final phase of implementing the model.

A gallery of photos of the event is available here.

For more information, please visit the OAS Website at www.oas.org.

Reference: E-412/14