National Drug Control System

First NDS User-Group Meeting

Draft Report
of
The first NDS User-Group meeting

6-8 April 1998, Vienna

Executive summary

The participants of the meeting reaffirmed that NDS is a very comprehensive tool for international and national drug control which, with modifications, should meet the requirements of all the participants. The main issue raised by the participants was the need for training and support for national customization. The meeting agreed upon a plan for primarily testing the system?s communication and data exchange facilities among the participating countries and with UNDCP. The meeting further urged UNDCP to provide drug control information (e.g competent authority information, assessment, estimates, etc.) on a more up-to-date basis instead of the current mechanism with monthly or yearly publications. The INCB Secretariat agreed to the proposal within their authority.

Introduction

Mr. Bertrand Juppin de Fondaumière, deputy executive director of UNDCP opened the meeting informing the participants that the extensive application of communication and technology facilities was one of the main strategies in the Secretary General?s reform of the UN. With the development and implementation of the National Database System (NDS) it is important, that this user group identifies the strengths of NDS, ways of improving NDS and need for support and maintenance. First priority lies in initiating collaboration in implementing these aims. Mr. de Fondaumière handed over the floor to Mr. Laurent Medioni, Switzerland to chair the meeting.

Mr. Laurent Medioni outlined the purpose of the NDS User-Group Meeting which was to examine the functions of the NDS-system and to encourage the users to utilize this electronic system more intensively.

Invitations have been sent to some countries where NDS has been installed and to others where installation is forthcoming. Delegations from France, Germany, Hungary, Mexico, Panama and Switzerland participated in the meeting (see list of participants). Unfortunately, Canada, Poland and UK could not attend the meeting. During the meeting, participants suggested that more countries (e.g. USA ) should be associated for the next steps.

Annexes:

Annex 1: Agenda

Annex 2: Participants

Annex 3: Focal Points

Annex 4: E-mail / News group / Web services:

Annex 5: Individual user-id and password

Annex 6: List of requirements and suggestions

Annex 7: Provisional time schedule

Annex 8: Comparison of the status quo in the control of narcotic drugs, psychotropic substances and precursor chemicals (information from participants in the meeting)

It was emphasized that the competent authorities are increasingly required to complete more tasks, without the support of necessary staff. NDS could be an important instrument to help these authorities master their activities. The control of narcotic drugs, psychotropic substances and precursors by the competent national authorities is very complex and only partially uniform. NDS should be flexible, in order to allow its use by all countries. NDS contains a lot of functions which may not be applicable for each user on the one hand, and on the other hand, NDS appears complicated for users without the necessary experience. Participants recognized that this problem can be solved by providing the necessary training.

The participants recognized the necessity of closed cooperation between the competent authorities, on both national and international levels (customs, health, police and trade authorities) and emphasized the need for electronic communication between the parties as an important factor for the efficacy of the control activities.

The participants agreed on the following important points and suggested a preliminary time schedule for their completion:

UNDCP has undertaken enormous efforts in order to develop NDS; to which the participants expressed their appreciation.

Presently, due to lack of experience among users, it is not possible to make recommendations to improve NDS at this stage.

UNDCP should provide updated data which are necessary for the training of the users by 15th May 1998(1) and assist them in their training. The meeting urged UNDCP to develop a hot-line support, which is necessary for assisting NDS-Users.

It is highly recommended that the users should examine, in a complete and exact manner, the latest data that NDS has to offer. Thereafter, they can better communicate the problems encountered, as well as remarks and suggestions to UNDCP before the end of August 1998.

Competent authorities who use NDS should immediately exchange their experiences through adequate means (forum, phone, mail, …).

Before the end of August 1998, the users should contact the other competent authorities on national level and examine the possibility of extending the use of NDS. The national structure should be clear in order to know who does what. It is necessary to identify the goals and to list what they can do with NDS.

A follow-up meeting of the NDS Users-Group will take place from 7th to 9th September 1998 in order to examine the functions of NDS for modifications that should improve the system. The follow-up meeting should serve to better illustrate the needs and suggestions of the participants. In preparation for the follow-up meeting, UNDCP will be in contact with the participant to collect their remarks and suggestions, as well as problems encountered. The invitations to this meeting will be sent by UNDCP.

Annex 1: Agenda

Monday 6 April 1998

Introduction (Mr. de Fondaumière)

Introduction of participants

What do we expect from an electronic system

2 working groups with wishes

Lunch

Summary of discussion

Information by Mr. Norsker on electronic systems

Presentation of NDS

Evaluation of the first day

Tuesday 7 April 1998

Presentation of NDS

Lunch

Demonstration of NDS flexibility

Problems to solve and Priorities

3 working groups

Evaluation of second day

Wednesday 8 April 1998

Discussion with INCB (Mr. Schaepe, Mr. Fujino, Ms. Herbeck-Wieser)

Lunch

Report drafting

Annex 2: Participants

NDS User-Group Meeting 6-8 April 1998, Vienna

Room C0727

List of participants

Datamatics Mr. Hemant Satam

Project Manager, NDS

France Ms. Chantal Gatignol

Narcotics and psychotropics Unit

L?Agence du Médicament.

Germany Dr. Winfried Kleinert

Federal Institute for Drugs and Medical Devices

Federal Opium Agency

Hungary Dr. Károly Balla

Ms. Éva Lux

Ms. Ildikó Péterfy

Népjoléti Minisztérium

Gyógyszerészeti Fölsztály, Budapest

Mexico Dr. Araceli Garcia Serna

Chief, Narcotics and Psychotropics Control Department

Panama Jorge Cedeño

Farmacy and Drugs Department

Ministry of Health

Insp. Ronaldo Reina

Chief of the Narcotics Division

Panamanian Technical Police

Switzerland Mr. Laurent Medioni

Chef, de la Section Contrôle et Authorisations

Mr. Christian Stamm

adjoint du chef de la section contrôle et authorisations

Ms. Caroline Schwartz

Technicienne de la section contrôle et authorisations

UNDCP Mr. Bertrand Juppin de Fondaumière

Deputy Executive Director

Mr. Anders Ole Norsker

Information and EDP Support Unit

UK Unable to participate

Canada Unable to participate

Poland Unable to participate

Spain Unable to participate

Annex 3: Focal Points

Contact persons:

(September 9, 1998)

Annex 4: E-mail / News group / Web services:

E-mail services:

As offered by UNDCP an e-mail account pertaining to all NDS questions has been established as well as a secure news group for discussion among NDS users made available.

UNDCP NDS E-mail address: nds@undcp.org

News group services:

NDS News group(2): URL: www.undcp.org(secure) nds

Userid: See attachment

Password: See attachment

Web services:

UNDCP public web services (incl. INCB services)

URL http://www.undcp.org/index.html

UNDCP restricted services for Permanent Mission

URL https://www.undcp.org:444/mission/

Userid See attachment

Password See attachment

UNDCP restricted services for National Drug Control Administrations

URL https://www.undcp.org:444/secure/

Userid See attachment

Password See attachment

Annex 5: Individual userid and password

For each user:

Annex 6: List of requirements and suggestions

CICAD To comprehensive for OAS use - only need for precursors.

To many login screens when only one user

Panama System enables sharing between Police and Health authorities

Needs Spanish help text and manuals

Hungary Finalized 1997 fourth quarter statistics to INCB (using establishments, I/E-authorizations, preparations etc) for both printing and EDI transmission. Interested in larger LAN installation.

Mexico Hard disk problem

Needs Spanish help text and manuals

France Computer section took computer back on which installation was done by Datamatics

Synonyms for trading products to be able to sell the same preparation with different names

Switzerland

Slow version (CNE from UNDCP assist Switzerland's computer section with memory configuration). Real application is pending update of establishments and preparation from DM. (Works in UNDCP and DM.)

EDI file name to be given by the user (the system proposes a name which can be changed)

Licensees and Drug Groups needed (group different pre country) and copy function for establishments.

Automatic generation of unique I/E ref. Numbers and other codes

Printing of multiple I/E documents

Populate country and CA fields with default value (SWI).

Germany Need system urgently for Precursors

Re-export authorization (no estimate deduction)

Licensing for Trade, Domestic trade and International Trade needed.

Date fields be populated with to-days-date for I/E modules

Display A names of drug / substances @ in various folders

Change of certain label wordings.

Possibilities of covering letters (country tailored)

Printing I/E doc from data entry screen

Defining data entry key for " save " to save one keystroke.

Tab folder to be accessible via keyboard.

Possibilities for splitting user function within I/E printing.

Canada Issues pertaining to ORACLE and SUN

Datamatics Preparation should always belong to Exporting -country. (Bug)

Symbol explanation

• Issues to be solved by 15. 5 .1998

Issues to be considered generic but to be implemented in a new releases

Issues to be considered domestic or individual customization.

Annex 7: Provisional time schedule

Related to the time frame for implementing the various suggestions made by Government of by UNDCP the following preliminary timetable was discussed:

15.4.98(3)

NDS news forum should be established by UNDCP.

NDS@undcp.org should be established by UNDCP

NDS@datamatic.com Established by Datamatics

15.5.98

NDS release 3.3.e (including New EDI format)

+ Bug fixes (I/E-prep) (Datamatics)

+ File save in EDI outbox with user defined name (Datamatics)

+ Helpfile updated in Spanish (UNDCP/Datamatics

July 98

EDI transmission of UNDCP data to users.

End 1998

NDS release (word in addition to WP)

+ Re-export features (in 32 bit versions)

+ License module and flexible printing (in 32-bit version)

+ MS-Word interfaces (re-exp. and license and I/E doc)

1999

NDS release

+ 32 bit version for all modules

+ Word for all printing

Year 2000

NDS new module (law enforcement, ARQ etc.)

Annex 8:

Comparison of the status quo in the control of narcotic drugs, psychotropic substances and precursor chemicals (information from participants in the meeting)

1. Due to technical and contractual constraints, this will be postponed for one month.

2. How to access secure news: Choose from your Webbrowser the NEWS reader. In Netscape it is called either news or in the newer Netscape Communicator release it is called Collabra Discussion Group. The news server is : www.undcp.org

it runs on port: 563 (secure news)

3. Due to technical and contractual constraints, this will be postponed for one month.