Secretariat of Comprehensive Policies on Drugs
# Secretariat of Comprehensive Policies on Drugs

The Secretariat of Comprehensive Policies on Drugs (Spanish: Secretaría de Políticas Integrales sobre Drogas; SEDRONAR) is a secretariat of state of the Argentine National Executive reporting to the Chief of the Cabinet of Ministers, tasked with assisting the population on drug use prevention and the treatment of drug addiction.

It was originally established in 1989 during the presidency of Carlos Menem as the "Secretariat of Programming for the Prevention of Drug Addiction and the Fight against Drug Trafficking", an agency reporting directly to the Office of the President. It was reformed to its current status in 2017, during the presidency of Mauricio Macri.

Since 13 January 2020, the Secretary of Comprehensive Policies on Drugs has been Gabriela Torres.

## History

The SEDRONAR was established in 1989 by president Carlos Menem through a modification of the Law on Ministries by Decree 271/89, replacing the National Coordinating Commission for the Control of Drug Trafficking and Drug Abuse (Spanish: Comisión Nacional Coordinadora para el Control del Narcotráfico y el Abuso de Drogas). Its first secretary was Alberto Lestelle, who was in office until 1995. Lestelle resigned in March 1995 after conducting an investigation into drug use among members of the National Congress; upon his resignation, Lestelle famously said that "a lot of deputies [do a bump of] cocaine in the bathroom" (Spanish: muchos diputados se dan un nariguetazo de cocaína en el baño). Lestelle was succeeded by Gustavo Green, and Julio César Aráoz and Eduardo Amadeo also headed the secretariat during the rest of Menem's presidency.

During the presidency of Fernando de la Rúa, the SEDRONAR was headed by Lorenzo Cortese, who was involved in a controversial dispute with then-INADI director (later Supreme Court justice) Eugenio Zaffaroni over his –and the government's– opposition to the decriminalization of drug use.

In 2004, President Néstor Kirchner appointed former Santa Cruz governor José Ramón Granero to the secretariat. Granero was in office through the presidencies of Kirchner and Cristina Fernández de Kirchner until his resignation in 2011. Granero was involved in a number of controversies, including the discovery of seven unidentified kilograms of cocaine in SEDRONAR vehicles in 2008 and the lack of controls in the entry of ephedrine from Mexico into Argentine territory (both for which he was tried and found innocent due to lack of evidence). Granero was finally asked his resignation by President Fernández de Kirchner due to his staunch opposition to decriminalization of drugs for personal use.

Granero's place was taken by former foreign minister Rafael Bielsa, who held the position until 2013. Bielsa was replaced by a priest, Juan Carlos Molina, who took office on 29 November 2013. Molina was a vocal supporter of decriminalizing all drugs. Under Molina's administration, the SEDRONAR cooperated with the Ministry of Federal Planning to set up two types of state-sponsored establishments aimed at curbing drug abuse and treating addictions: Casas Educativas Terapéuticas (CET, "educational therapeutic homes") and Centros Preventivos Locales de las Adicciones (CEPLA, "local preventive addiction centres"). Molina resigned due to personal reasons in May 2015 and was replaced by Gabriel Lerner.

President Mauricio Macri designated Roberto Moro to the SEDRONAR on 10 December 2015. On 12 January 2017, President Macri issued a decree overhauling the SEDRONAR, renaming it as the "Secretariat of Comprehensive Policies on Drugs" (while maintaining the same acronym) and stripping it of its presidential secretariat status, reorganizing it under the Office of the Cabinet Chief. A number of functions of the SEDRONAR were also reassigned to the Ministry of Security.

## Attributions

The Secretariat is tasked with coordinating the Argentine state's policy on drug use and addiction. Its administration is based around two axes: reducing drug demand and reducing drug availability. On the first axis, the SEDRONAR seeks to establish communal support networks that may help reduce drug demand, thus establishing strategies and elaborating policies aimed at preventing the use of drugs. The Secretariat also cooperates with the Ministry of Security to identify and disestablish illegal drug commerce and distribution.

The SEDRONAR counts with two undersecretariats: the Undersecretariat of Prevention, Investigation and Statistics on Drugs (Spanish: Subsecretaría de Prevención, Investigación y Estadísticas en materia de Drogas) and the Undersecretariat of Attention and Care on Drugs (Spanish: Subsecretaría de Atención y Acompañamiento en materia de Drogas).

### Argentine Drugs Observatory

The Argentine Drugs Observatory (Spanish: Observatorio Argentino de Drogas, OAD) was established in 2005 to create and interpret reliable information on the use and commerce of drugs in Argentina. On a yearly basis, the OAD conducts a nation-wide survey on the state of drug use and commerce.

## List of secretaries

| No. | Secretary | Party | Term | President |
| - | - | - | - | - |
| Secretariat of Programming for the Prevention of Drug Addiction and the Fight against Drug Trafficking (1989–2017) |||||||
| 1 | Alberto Lestelle | Justicialist Party | 17 July 1989 – 17 October 1995 | Carlos Menem |
| 2 | Gustavo Green | Justicialist Party | 26 October 1995 – 16 February 1996 | Carlos Menem |
| 3 | Julio César Aráoz | Justicialist Party | 18 February 1996 – 11 April 1998 | Carlos Menem |
| 4 | Eduardo Amadeo | Justicialist Party | 11 April 1998 – 10 December 1999 | Carlos Menem |
| 5 | Lorenzo Cortese | Radical Civic Union | 19 January 2000 – 20 December 2001 | Fernando de la Rúa |
| 6 | Wilbur Ricardo Grimson | Independent | 25 February 2002 – 25 May 2003 | Eduardo Duhalde |
| 6 | Wilbur Ricardo Grimson | Independent | 25 May 2003 – 13 July 2004 | Néstor Kirchner |
| 7 | José Ramón Granero | Justicialist Party | 13 July 2004 – 10 December 2007 | Néstor Kirchner |
| 7 | José Ramón Granero | Justicialist Party | 10 December 2007 – 20 December 2011 | Cristina Fernández de Kirchner |
| 8 | Rafael Bielsa | Justicialist Party | 30 December 2011 – 20 March 2013 | Cristina Fernández de Kirchner |
| 9 | Juan Carlos Molina | Justicialist Party | 29 November 2013 – 14 May 2015 | Cristina Fernández de Kirchner |
| 10 | Gabriel Lerner | Kolina | 19 May 2015 – 10 December 2015 | Cristina Fernández de Kirchner |
| 11 | Roberto Moro | Justicialist Party | 10 December 2015 – 12 January 2017 | Mauricio Macri |
| Secretariat of Comprehensive Policies on Drugs (2017–present) |||||||
| 11 | Roberto Moro | Justicialist Party | 12 January 2017 – 10 December 2019 | Mauricio Macri |
| 12 | Gabriela Torres | Independent | 13 January 2020 – present | Alberto Fernández |
