"life is what happens to you while you are busy making other plans"
John Lennon

I did
collect some useful links and informations, Anyway for
who is concerned.. This collection of links gives a
general introduction to drug problems.
There are literally thousands of websites that cover
the entire
spectrum
of the phenomenon of illicit drugs. But i just pick up
some!



International Organizations :


---United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC),
Vienna, Austria---
Coordinates international control of narcotic drugs
and psychotropic substances. Consists of the United
Nations International Drug Control Programme (UNDCP)
and the United Nations Centre for International Crime
Prevention (CICP).
This site includes the annual UNODC report, entitled
Global Illicit Drug Trends.
<http://www.unodc.org/unodc/index.html>

--European Monitoring Center for Drugs and Drug
Addiction (EMCDDA),Lisbon, Portugal---
Provides EU member states with information on drugs.
The work of the agency focuses on monitoring the drugs
situation and analyzing responses to the situation.
<http://www.emcdda.org/>


NGOs :


---Drug Policy Alliance, New York, US---
Works to end the war on drugs and promotes new drug
policies based on science, compassion, health, and
human rights. This site provides background
information on different drugs, drug policies around
the world, legal resources, and news and reports on
drug wars.
<http://www.lindesmith.org/>

---The Media Awareness Project (MAP): Drugnews
Archive, Irvine, US---
MAP is a US initiative that aims to change drug policy
by increasing awareness of the negative consequences
of drug prohibition and law enforcement. MAP offers
collections of reports on drug problems from the print
media, radio, and television.
<http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/>


---Association d'ةtudes Géopolitiques des Drogues
(AEGD)/ Center for
Geopolitical Drug Studies, Nantes, France---
The center's reports identify the actors, settings,
and trends of the illicit drug trade, including drug
consumption, and analyze the strategies implemented in
order to develop the drug economy or,conversely, curb
it. This site provides reports, newsletters, and a
photo library.
<http://www.geodrugs.net/>


---DrugScope, London, UK---
Provides drug information, promotes responses to drug
taking, undertakes research at local, national, and
international levels, and gives advice on
policy-making.
<http://www.drugscope.org.uk/>



Research Institutions :


---RAND Drug Policy Research Center (DPRC), Santa
Monica, US---Conducts research to help community
leaders and public officials develop more effective
ways of dealing with drug problems. The center's goal
is to provide a firm, empirical foundation on which
sound policies can be built.
<http://www.rand.org/multi/dprc/>


--Bremer Institut für Drogenforschung (BISDRO)/
Institute for Drug Research, Bremen, Germany---
The institute at the University of Bremen focuses on
social and legal aspects of drug consumption and drug
policy. The BISDRO encompasses two branches: the
research institute and the archives for drug
literature. Partly German.
<http://www.bisdro.uni-bremen.de/>

---Internet Sources for Studying the War on Drugs---
This site is maintained by the Transnational Institute
(TNI), which focuses on issues such as human rights,
sustainable development, and a
reform of the international political economy. TNI's
Drugs and Democracy Project offers a huge categorized
collection of links and documents on international
drug control.
<http://www.tni.org/drugs/links/links.htm>


USA Government Institutions :

---Bureau for International Narcotics and Law
Enforcement Affairs(INL)---This site, maintained by
the US Department of State, provides narcotic
control reports, a photo gallery, and information on
the organization's main goals, which are to reduce the
entry of illegal drugs into the US and to minimize the
impact of international crime on the US and its
citizens.
<http://www.state.gov/g/inl/>

---International Narcotics Control Strategy Report
2002---The report is annually provided by the US
Department of State and documents illicit drug-control
and money laundering activities in more
than 140 countries. The reports vary in the extent of
their coverage, depending on the information available
from host country authorities.
<http://www.state.gov/g/inl/rls/nrcrpt/2002/>

---Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP),
Rockville, US---Establishes policies and priorities
for the nation's drug control program. The goals of
the program are to reduce illicit drug use,
manufacturing, and trafficking, drug-related crime and
violence, and drug-related health consequences.
<http://www.whitehousedrugpolicy.gov/>


Thanks , I hope it would be usful site for all people
who are concered..

If you unsure about it, do not give up, but just go back a few steps. Go back a few steps to the place where you pin pointed exactly what it is about you that you feel you lost. When you get there, ask yourself if the loss actually bothers you. If it is something you think about often, wishing that you could be that way again but cannot seem to get there, then you are definitely in need of re-discovery. If you feel that it is something you used to do, but is simply a past version of yourself, then you are fine and should just let it go and concentrate on moving on with your present life.

New developments can make a huge difference to our lives. Telephones, radios, emails, videos, faxes: so many of us take these communication technologies for granted. But, says Kimberly Clarke, for millions of people, they remain no more than a dream.


Crispin Hughes/Panos Pictures


Throughout the developing world, communication with and among poor communities is essential in the fight against poverty. And information communications technology (ICT) has a vital role to play, not only to help people gain information, but to communicate, whether that is with friends, other communities, or local officials. Lives can be saved if people understand the consequences of risky behaviour, for example, in relation to HIV/AIDS. Incomes can be increased if farmers, producers and traders have better information about markets and customers. Children’s education in remote communities can be greatly enhanced using radio, television, or audio and video cassettes. Teachers can be trained in the same ways. Health professionals can provide a better service if they can get advice and order appropriate medicines. Livelihoods can be improved if people are able to persuade officials to make laws and rules that are more appropriate to their needs.

New technologies
In addition to these communications mechanisms, the last decades of the 20th century saw more new ICTs developing, including the growth of email, the internet and cell phones. There is a role for agencies and governments to play – mainly through policy, regulation, and funding – in enabling those people in developing countries who can afford and want to use these new ICTs to do so. One investment that has great potential to help in the fight against poverty is training: training the people who control the technologies and the resources to consult poor communities, listen to them, and respect what they say. Training them to involve end-users in designing and applying information and communication solutions, and to understand that although communities need information, they have information to share too.

Empowering communities
Once those controlling the resources truly understand that communication is a two-way street, problems can begin to be solved. Any attempt to improve poor communities’ access to information has to start with the community itself. First find out what information they need or want most, what they want to tell others, and who they want to communicate with. Nothing can be assumed. In the 1960s, a social scientist working in Cape Town was authorised to provide a local community with some additional classes or training courses. She asked them what kind of courses they would like. To her astonishment, they said they wanted for Latin courses for their children. At the time, students could not get into medical school or law school without Latin.



Panos Pictures


Secondly, which of the potential information delivery options does that community prefer? Building the capacity within a community to evaluate all the different options is part of a long-term development strategy that enables that community to judge and choose other technology options in the future. Only they know which option will be accessible to those who want to use it, and at what price. Would the information that the community really needs be available on the Web, in a language that they will understand? Is there an opportunity for the community to design their own website, containing information that they want to tell other people? Will women and young people have equal access? Is electricity available, and is the supply reliable? Is a telephone line available, reliable, and of a standard to carry data? Does the community have the money to control how often they access the technology? Would they rather improve the flow of accurate information to a particular individual in their community by enabling that person, for example, to travel to a nearby city to visit markets and government offices, buy newspapers, and talk to other people outside their normal network?

There is no doubt that some new ICTs are mushrooming in popularity in countries and communities where there is a market. In Venezuela, Cambodia, and Cote d’Ivoire, for instance, there are now proportionately more cellular phone lines per thousand people than land lines. Subscribers who can afford to have signed up for a number of reasons, including long waits for land lines, convenience and fashion, but they clearly believe that they are getting value for money considering the options available.

Fools rush in
But for the vast majority of poor people in developing countries, the best solutions will continue to be the ones that they are already relying on now: other people in their social network, radio, and in some cases printed materials. There is huge room for improvement in many of these ‘old’ ICTs. Freedom of information and censorship continue to be great problems in many poor countries, and 2001 was an appalling year for journalists from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe.

While there are success stories of new ICTs, particularly where governments or NGOs have developed long-term and well-funded programmes, sustainability in the sense of self-financing is a long way off. Recent worldwide research carried out by the Intermediate Technology Development Group (ITDG) for DFID concluded that ‘the applicability of new ICTs to the problems of the poor is unproven’.

In ITDG’s long experience of working with poor people across a wide range of technologies, people apply the same basic principles when considering any technology option. Is it:

• Affordable?
• Accessible?
• Appropriate?

If people living on $1 or even $2 a day in already marginalised communities in poor countries cannot afford a technology, access it, and adapt it to their social, economic, and cultural needs, then they will never invest in it. And while there is no doubt that all poor communities need more information than they currently get, if the community was able to make the choice, how would people solve their own information problems?

A word of caution

Panos Pictures


Any mention of the term ‘ICT’ more often than not conjures up images of computers and the internet. Even UNDP, in its Human Development Report 2001, adds to the confusion: a timeline of milestones in ‘Communications technology’ includes Morse code, the telephone, wireless transmission, television, and satellite, mobile and fibre optic telecommunications. There is no mention of the invention or evolution of papermaking, the printing press, or basic writing instruments such as pens and pencils. Relatively cheap technologies such as cameras, typewriters, tape recorders, VCRs and fax machines are ignored, as are the services and transport technologies that have revolutionised communications: the postal system, bicycles, cars, trains and aeroplanes, to name a few. Worryingly, HDR 2001 then identifies the future of communications technology as: ‘High-speed connection to every home, Internet coupling with game devices, [and the] merger of cellular phones and personal digital assistants’.

The future for whom? Certainly not for the two billion people without electricity, or the estimated one-half of the world’s population who have never used a telephone. According to the World Bank, 2.8 billion people – nearly half the world’s population – live on less than $2 a day. This is not just semantics. The appropriation of the ICT issue by the mainly Northern developed industrial community has been efficient and overwhelming, and many people in Northern-based agencies and NGOs – whose own working lives and leisure activities have been so changed by Internet technology – have been seduced into thinking it could be the answer to everyone’s information problems.

Despite these gloomy figures, though, there is no doubt that access to new ICTs is growing. In China, for example, user numbers are expected to double from just over 4 million users to more than 8 million in the next year, according to the OECD’s 2001 report Understanding the Digital Divide. Understanding is exactly what is required. Not just the facts and figures, but the people behind the statistics. Some thought and attention to the needs and desires of people who feel isolated and left behind, and an acknowledgement that their problems will not be solved by widget alone.

Kimberly Clarke is a freelance writer and editor on development issues. kimberly@gn.apc.org

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If the rain comes, they run and hide their heads.
They might as well be dead.
If the rain comes. if the rain comes.
When the sun shines, they slip into the shade.
And sip their lemonade.
When the sun shines. when the sun shines.
Rain, I don’t mind.
Shine, the weather’s fine.
I can show you that when it starts to rain.
Everything’s the same.
I can show you. I can show you.
Rain, I don’t mind.
Shine, the weather’s fine.
Can you hear me that when it rains and shines.
It’s just a state of mind?
Can you hear me? can you hear me?


by the beatles