NARCOTICS AFFAIRS SECTION

Standing together for a Drug-Free Bolivia

Under the principle of shared responsibility, the Narcotics Affairs Section (NAS) of the United States Embassy in Bolivia supports the operations of the Bolivian Narcotics Special Task Force (FELCN, in Spanish) in Chuquisaca.

NAS also assists the efforts of the District Attorney’s Office through its support to the Controlled Substance Attorneys’ Office.  In addition, NAS promotes respect for human rights and the elimination of corruption by providing support to the National Police’s and FELCN’s National Directorate of Professional Accountability.

In the area of drug use prevention, 32 professionals, including physicians, educators, social workers, lawyers, and police officers, enrolled in March 2006 in Bolivia’s first Master’s Program in drug use prevention and rehabilitation at the Simon Bolivar Andean University at Sucre.  NAS launched the program with a $75,000 grant to pay for 25 full scholarships.  These graduate students work at institutions that deal with drug supply reduction in 8 of the 9 departments of Bolivia and have been trained to design, implement, and evaluate prevention programs, as well as diagnose and develop treatment, rehabilitation, and social reinsertion strategies

With the increase in drug abuse, especially in younger populations, there is an urgent need to prepare families to face this serious problem.  To assist parents in promoting a drug-free household, NAS, through CONALTID’s Drug Prevention Programs Decentralization project, trained Sucre’s municipal technical teams to in turn train parents under the PROTEGO Program.

NAS has also funded the Drug Abuse Resistance Education Program (DARE) in Chuquisaca since 2002.  In these six years of work, the program has benefited 12,478 10-12 year-old students in grades 5 through 7 from 77 public schools in the department.