The use of illicit drugs must be decriminalized 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 said in an interview 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 dollars spent on fighting HIV and AIDS will be wasted.
Kazatchkine will use his keynote speech at the 20th International Harm Reduction Association conference today in Bangkok to expose the failures of policies that 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 criminalized. I’m talking about criminalizing trafficking, but not users.”
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,” he said. “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, he has overseen some of the most dramatic improvements in treatment and prevention of HIV globally.
China yesterday held a low-key memorial ceremony for the 1937 Nanjing Massacre, with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) not attending, despite a diplomatic crisis between Beijing and Tokyo over Taiwan. Beijing has raged at Tokyo since Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi last month said that a hypothetical Chinese attack on Taiwan could trigger a military response from Japan. China and Japan have long sparred over their painful history. China consistently reminds its people of the 1937 Nanjing Massacre, in which it says Japanese troops killed 300,000 people in what was then its capital. A post-World War II Allied tribunal put the death toll
FALLEN: The nine soldiers who were killed while carrying out combat and engineering tasks in Russia were given the title of Hero of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea North Korean leader Kim Jong-un attended a welcoming ceremony for an army engineering unit that had returned home after carrying out duties in Russia, North Korean state media KCNA reported on Saturday. In a speech carried by KCNA, Kim praised officers and soldiers of the 528th Regiment of Engineers of the Korean People’s Army (KPA) for “heroic” conduct and “mass heroism” in fulfilling orders issued by the ruling Workers’ Party of Korea during a 120-day overseas deployment. Video footage released by North Korea showed uniformed soldiers disembarking from an aircraft, Kim hugging a soldier seated in a wheelchair, and soldiers and officials
‘NO AMNESTY’: Tens of thousands of people joined the rally against a bill that would slash the former president’s prison term; President Lula has said he would veto the bill Tens of thousands of Brazilians on Sunday demonstrated against a bill that advanced in Congress this week that would reduce the time former president Jair Bolsonaro spends behind bars following his sentence of more than 27 years for attempting a coup. Protests took place in the capital, Brasilia, and in other major cities across the nation, including Sao Paulo, Florianopolis, Salvador and Recife. On Copacabana’s boardwalk in Rio de Janeiro, crowds composed of left-wing voters chanted “No amnesty” and “Out with Hugo Motta,” a reference to the speaker of the lower house, which approved the bill on Wednesday last week. It is
Cozy knits, sparkly bobbles and Santa hats were all the canine rage on Sunday, as hundreds of sausage dogs and their owners converged on central London for an annual parade and get-together. The dachshunds’ gathering in London’s Hyde Park came after a previous “Sausage Walk” planned for Halloween had to be postponed, because it had become so popular organizers needed to apply for an events licence. “It was going to be too much fun so they canceled it,” laughed Nicky Bailey, the owner of three sausage dogs: Una and her two 19-week-old puppies Ember and Finnegan, wearing matching red coats and silver
RSS