The impacts of drug abuse and trafficking are pervasive, felt far beyond immediate users and their families. Communities are affected when taxes are increased to finance additional police surveillance, prosecutions and maintenance of penal institutions. A full accounting must also include the costs of health programs to treat users of drugs and the indirect costs to society. The drug trade distorts economies. Drug exports inflate currency values and make it more difficult for legal businesses to import products and maintain their competitive edge abroad.
Money laundering can undermine the confidence of legal investors.
In recent years, drugs have become an increasingly important international issue, particularly in the Hemisphere, because they also affect the interests of states. The importance of the production and trade of illicit drugs as an irritant in relations between states in the region has been evidenced most clearly by the controversy surrounding the annual US decertification program. In June 1997, the OAS General Assembly adopted the Anti-Drug Strategy in the Hemisphere, as a platform for greater efforts to control drugs in the 21st Century. The objective of the MEM is to strengthen mutual confidence, dialogue and hemispheric cooperation in order to deal with the drug problem with greater efficacy. It will follow-up on the progress of individual and collective efforts of all the countries participating in the Mechanism, indicating both results achieved as well as obstacles faced by the countries.