PANAMA CITY, Panama – March 2018: From 20 to 22 March 2018, the UNODC Laboratory and Scientific Section (LSS), in collaboration with the UNODC Regional Office for Central America and the Caribbean in Panama (UNODC ROPAN), conducted the first capacity building workshop on “Drug identification with handheld electronic field testing devices” for law enforcement and laboratory officers in Central America and the Caribbean. This workshop was held in Panama City and attended by officers from the Bahamas, the Dominica Republic, Jamaica, Panama, and Trinidad and Tobago. Training enhanced the capacity of law enforcement and laboratory personnel to identify a wide range of controlled substances as well as new synthetic substances. This workshop was the first training to introduce the use of hand-held electronic field testing devices, a Raman spectrometer, for which UNODC guidelines and a training course had been recently developed. The meeting was closed with a handing over ceremony of two handheld electronic field testing devices for Panama to the Minister for Public Security, His Excellency Alexis Bethancourt. Following the workshop, each attending country will receive 2 Raman spectrometers.

For more information, please see:

UNODC Guidelines on Raman Handheld Field Identification Devices for Seized Material
https://www.unodc.org/documents/scientific/Guidelines_Raman_Handheld_Field_dentification_Devices.pdf

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