Pubdate: Wed, 25 Jul 2012
Source: Pacific Daily News (US GU)
Copyright: 2012 Pacific Daily News
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Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1122
Author: Richard Branson
Note: Sir Richard Branson serves on the Global Commission on Drug 
Policy and is the founder of the Virgin Group and Virgin Unite.

DRUG WARS LEAD TO MORE HIV CASES

In a striking report this month, the Global Commission on Drug Policy 
showed that the continued criminalization of drug use drives the 
spread of HIV. People have long known that drug use is linked to 
disease, but this is the first clear analysis of how our enforcement 
of drug laws condemns thousands to AIDS, hepatitis C and other 
life-threatening ailments.

This happens because repressive law enforcement activities drive drug 
users to the fringes of society, away from health services, and into 
environments and practices that elevate the risk of HIV transmission. 
Dirty, shared needles become commonplace when users must hide and 
depend on criminal networks, and HIV rates soar.

About 33 million people in the world have HIV, and injection drug use 
now accounts for one-third of new HIV infections outside of 
sub-Saharan Africa. In Russia, an epidemic driven substantially 
through injection drug use has left one in 100 adults battling HIV. 
Russia strictly enforces drug laws and, by some estimates, one in 
three Russian intravenous drug users has HIV.

This month, the USA hosts the massive International AIDS Conference. 
It brings more than 25,000 of the world's leaders in HIV research, 
care and treatment to Washington, D.C., to further global efforts to 
treat and eradicate HIV. The United States has been a global leader 
in expanding HIV treatment around the world. Just seven months ago, 
the international community welcomed the U.S. commitment to an 
AIDS-free generation.

Yet the United States and dozens of other countries, including China, 
Russia, Thailand and Canada continue to enforce policies that 
criminalize drug use and drive HIV transmission. The Global 
Commission urges national leaders and U.N. agencies such as the 
United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime to reject the failed war on 
drugs and evaluate drug policy success through measures that are 
meaningful, such as reduced rates of HIV and disease transmission, 
fewer overdose deaths, and reduced drug market violence.

Arresting and imprisoning non-violent people who use drugs must end. 
It consumes vast resources because treatment is many times cheaper 
than prosecution and incarceration. Resources that now go to these 
arrests should instead be devoted to evidence-based treatment and 
care options for drug dependence, and the scaling up of strategies to 
reduce HIV infection and protect the health of people who use drugs, 
including with syringe exchanges and drug substitution, or 
maintenance therapies. Law enforcement resources should focus on 
violent criminal cartels.

Decriminalization Decriminalization policies can work. In Australia, 
Portugal and Switzerland, newly diagnosed HIV infections among drug 
users have been greatly reduced because drug users are offered 
treatment instead of prison. British Columbia has been successful in 
combating HIV in its large population of intravenous drug users. 
Through evidence-based measures -- including needle exchanges, HIV 
treatment for all and the first supervised injection site in North 
America -- B.C. has reduced HIV infections among people who inject 
drugs from nearly 400 in 1996 to about 50 in 2010.

Refusing to implement such proven public health measures that reduce 
HIV infection and protect people who use drugs is criminal.

Unfortunately, even in the face of incontrovertible evidence that 
public health policies meaningfully reduce HIV transmission in 
injection drug users, national governments continue to persecute and 
prosecute non-violent drug users. In fact, the U.S. recently 
reinstated a ban on the use of federal funds for syringe exchange programs.

It is time to fight such shortsighted and destructive policies. By 
embracing evidence-based health policies, China, the United States, 
Russia, Canada and many other countries can prevent millions of HIV 
infections and save countless lives.

With my fellow commissioners, I call on national leaders to recognize 
the causal links between war on drugs and the spread of HIV, and take 
immediate steps to implement proven public health approaches to drug 
policy. The status quo is no longer an option.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom