Lima, May 15,  2009.- Delegations of judges, state attorneys, and police officers from the four Andean Community countries, during the International Symposium on “Controlled Deliveries, Undercover Investigators and Confidential Informants of Synthetic Drugs,” held from May 11 to 14 at the headquarters of the CAN General Secretariat, in Lima, analyzed the German and European experiences, as well as their own, with techniques for investigating, legislating, and controlling the production of and trafficking in synthetic drugs.

The Symposium, in which 5 German experts from the Federal Criminal Investigation Office (BKA) and a Hamburg State Attorney participated as speakers, was held in coordination with the German Embassy in Lima, through the BKA’s Liaison Officer and Police Attaché and under the responsibility and with the financing of the CAN-EU Project on Support for the Andean Community in the Area of Synthetic Drugs (DROSICAN).

Over the three-day Symposium, German and European experiences were presented with regard to the most up-to-date aspects of the legislation on and control of the production of and trafficking in synthetic drugs, as well as related crimes. The Andean delegates shared information about their experiences with each other and with the German experts and parameters were established for future coordination and different forms of bilateral and multilateral cooperation in the area of synthetic drugs.

The Symposium also made it clear that synthetic drugs are and will be a growing threat in Europe, the Andean countries and the world in general.  There are an estimated 34 million consumers of synthetic drugs today --in other words, more than double the number of cocaine users (16 million) or heroin users (12 million)-- and synthetic drug use is rising much more rapidly.   

When one thinks of synthetic drugs, what comes to mind is MDMA or Ecstasy.  But the list is long and constantly growing.  Some medicines used without a prescription have been added to it, like, for example, some analgesics used as painkillers for patients with terminal diseases, like Fentanyl, or drugs that are used mainly in veterinary medicine, like Ketamine. Also added are mixtures that “are said to enhance their effect,” but which, in reality, only serve to increase the profit margins of drug traffickers.  We must not forget the amphetamines, the metamphetamines and many other drugs that are part of the "new synthetic drug trends, like MDMA crystals, a new form of ecstasy, instead of pills; and the herbal mixtures incorporating synthetic cannabis that are marketed under the name of SPICE.

We must also add to the list substances that are classified as "Designer Drugs," which come from already existing chemical products, but whose chemical compositions have been adulterated to hoodwink the law.

The experience of Germany, which has been working on the subject for over twenty years, reveals that synthetic drugs are a very serious problem for the world’s youth and that, for that reason, it is important to encourage and deepen international cooperation in fighting it, basically because it is far easier to produce and distribute synthetic drugs than natural drugs, like cocaine.