Introduction
The people of the United States and Mexico share a common commitment to combat drugs. Both countries alike recognize that drug use puts our children, our families and even our democracies at risk. We hold a common understanding that the demand for drugs, which is a universal problem, drives the deadly trade in these illegal substances.
Under the leadership of Presidents Zedillo and Clinton we have made significant progress in building cooperative efforts to rid our nations of the threat of drugs. We created the High Level Contact Group for Drug Control in March, 1996 to improve the health and well-being of our peoples through drug control and prevention. We have also produced three important
agreements: the United States Declaration of the U.S.-Mexico Alliance Against Drugs, the U.S.-Mexico Bi-National Drug Threat Assessment and a U.S.-Mexico Bi-National Drug Strategy. Our cooperation to reduce the availability of drugs through aggressive interdiction, tough law enforcement and sound judicial processes is well established and remains vital to our success.
Now we have turned the strength of our common commitment to the challenge of
eliminating the demand for drugs through citizen participation, service delivery and inter-
governmental collaboration. The Bi-National Demand Reduction Conference, held in El Paso, Texas, was the first step in implementing the demand reduction goals set forth in our Bi-National Strategy. Researchers, practitioners, treatment and prevention experts from both nations came together in El Paso in an effort to share their expertise, exchange ideas, and strengthen through cooperation, our shared ability to reduce drug use.
The Conference was an important step forward to develop both a mutual understanding of how we can best reduce drug demand, and a strategy to achieve this end. From the
Conference emerged eight concrete, pivotal strategy areas where continued implementation efforts should focus on:
- Research cooperation and the exchange of technical information to provide the building blocks of sound science-based initiatives;
- Public information and awareness to look at the effects of media as both contributing to and preventing substance abuse in Mexico and the United States;
- Community participation as a method to organize citizens, the faith community and public agencies to combat drugs at the local level;
- Youth, who represent the future of United States and Mexico, the first and foremost objective of bi-national cooperation;
- Special populations whose characteristics may place them at risk for substance abuse and who require additional methodologies and initiatives;
- Workplace efforts which address early intervention and prevention with corporations, small businesses and organized labor at work to increase demand reduction at work;
- The incidence of HIV/AIDS which presents a challenge to our countries in promoting public health;
- Violence and drug-related problems that are areas of concern especially at our border area.
We will use new technology to promote bi-national work groups explored at the El Paso conference. The initial discussions have already led to information exchange via Internet and new media initiatives that optimize public awareness of the dangers of drug use. The High Level
Contact Group will continue to serve as the forum to promote continuous action and results in these eight areas. It is a pleasure to offer these proceedings as another milestone in the evolution of demand reduction cooperation.
Dr. Juan Ramón de la Fuente
Secretary of Health
Mexico
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Barry R. McCaffrey
Director
U.S. Office of National Drug Control Policy
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