Pubdate: Sun, 19 Apr 2009
Source: Observer, The (UK)
Copyright: 2009 Guardian News and Media Limited
Contact:  http://www.observer.co.uk/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/315
Author: Mary O'Hara, The Observer
Graphic: http://www.mapinc.org/images/Aids-and-HIV-worldwide.jpg
Cited: International Harm Reduction Association http://www.ihra.net/
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/hr.htm (Harm Reduction)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?137 (Needle Exchange)

CURB AIDS AND HIV BY DECRIMINALISING DRUGS, SAY EXPERTS

The use of illicit drugs must be decriminalised if efforts to halt 
the spread of Aids are to succeed, one of the world's leading 
independent authorities on the disease has warned.

In an unprecedented attack on global drugs policy, Michele 
Kazatchkine, head of the influential Global Fund to Fight Aids, 
Tuberculosis and Malaria, has told the Observer that, without a 
radical overhaul of laws that lead to hundreds of thousands of drug 
users being imprisoned or denied access to safe treatment, the 
millions of pounds spent on fighting HIV and Aids will be wasted.

Kazatchkine will use his keynote speech at the 20th International 
Harm Reduction Association conference tomorrow in Bangkok to expose 
the failures of policies which treat addiction as a crime. He will 
accuse governments of using what he calls "repressive" measures that 
deny addicts human rights rather than putting public health needs first.

He will argue that governments should fully commit to the widespread 
provision of harm reduction strategies aimed at intravenous drug 
users, such as free needle exchanges and providing substitutes to 
illicit drugs, such as methadone.

"A repressive way of dealing with drug users is a way of facilitating 
the spread of the [HIV/Aids] epidemic," Kazatchkine said. "If you 
know you will be arrested, you will not go for treatment. I say drug 
use cannot be criminalised. I'm talking about criminalising 
trafficking but not users. From a scientific perspective, I cannot 
understand the repressive policy perspective."

He condemns policymakers who argue that, because drug users 
frequently turn to crime to fund their habit, it justifies making it 
a criminal justice issue. Harm reduction both helps the addict and 
wider society and reduces the need to commit crime, he said.

"The one population where [Aids] mortality has been untouched - and 
in fact has worsened - has been IV [intravenous] drug users. It's 
amazing, because what we call harm reduction, such as exchanging 
needles, has been scientifically proven as the most effective.

"This is why I will most probably start my speech in Bangkok by 
mentioning the contrast between major progress achieved in decreasing 
mortality from Aids in the poorest countries of the world versus the 
total lack of progress for what is the main route of transmission in 
most parts of the world outside Africa."

Kazatchkine suggested that politicians feared that the public would 
label them soft on drugs. A doctor and respected Aids expert with 20 
years in the field, he has in his two years at the helm of the Global 
Fund overseen some of the most dramatic improvements in treatment and 
prevention of HIV globally.

Since it was established in 2001, the fund has received $21bn in 
contributions from the world's wealthiest nations and used it to play 
a significant part in reducing rates of new HIV infections. It has 
also contributed to the distribution of much needed life-preserving 
anti-retroviral drugs to millions of people already diagnosed.

Alex Stevens, a senior research fellow specialising in drugs and 
criminalisation at the University of Kent, said tomorrow's speech 
would highlight many of the troubling consequences of criminal 
justice approaches to drugs policy.

"In many countries, serious human rights infringements are committed 
in the name of fighting drugs," he said. "These include the use of 
the death penalty for drug offences, compulsory treatment regimes 
that include methods (such as physical beatings) that are akin to 
torture, and, for example in the USA, depriving convicted drug law 
offenders of the right to vote."

Stevens said that, while the UK was ahead of many other countries on 
harm reduction, its tendency to criminalise drug users could 
undermine its efforts.

What is needed, Kazatchkine will argue tomorrow, is a total rethink 
of drugs policies. "What I'm saying is that government's function is 
to protect their citizens. This is why harm reduction should be 
supported by all governments everywhere."
- ---
MAP posted-by: Richard Lake