Drug users demand treatment, not torture

"Human rights are drug users' rights, as well. Because in too many countries, still, in too many police cells, in too many health services, and in too many prisons, drug users are treated as less than human," said Professor Michel Kazatchkine, Executive Director of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.

He was speaking at the opening of the International Harm Reduction Conference in Bangkok.

 Thailand is the recent recipient of a US$100 million grant from the Global Fund with the goal of reducing new HIV infections by providing universal access to HIV prevention services in selected provinces for most at risk populations: female sex workers, men who have sex with men (MSM), injecting drug users (IDU) and migrant workers.

Kazatchkine said it was encouraging to see that some countries who had traditionally employed a law enforcement approach to drug control were now moving cautiously towards a public health approach, including many countries  in Asia.

"Let us say, to China, to Malaysia, to Vietnam and to Thailand: keep up the good work. By embracing harm reduction, you are on the right side of history," he added.

"Thailand needs to learn from the success of its HIV/AIDS campaign in the 1990's when HIV/AIDS was accepted as a problem and addressed openly and successfully," said Pratin Dharmarak, Country Representative of PSI. "Yet, today there is very limited understanding about drug use in Thai society. While injecting drug users  are at the highest risk of HIV, they are among the most stigmatized and hardest to reach populations," she added.

Injecting drug use accounts for 10 per cent of HIV cases globally and 30 per cent outside sub-Saharan Africa, yet resources for prevention of HIV transmission among injecting drugs users is not commensurate with need, according to a press statement from the Global Fund.

 "Only 2-3 percent (US$200m to US300 million per year), of all the available resources for AIDS is spent on harm reduction. It is clearly not enough. If we are serious about reducing HIV infection amongst injecting drug users then we are going to need between US$2 and US$3 billion this year and next to get anywhere near the kind of coverage that is going to make an impact," said Professor Gerry Stimson, executive director of the International Harm Reduction Association (IHRA), a leading organisation promoting a harm reduction approach to all psychoactive substance.

IHRA exists to prevent the negative social, health, economic and criminal impacts of illicit drugs, alcohol and tobacco for individuals, communities and society.

 The conference started off with a group of activists taking part in a march to protest human rights violations carried out by regional governments in the name of drug treatment.

 Testimonies will be given by men and women from Thailand, Cambodia, India and elsewhere who have directly experienced beating, chaining, caging, and other abuses while in state custody for drug "rehabilitation" and "treatment."

Drug user activists are deploring the inadequate actions of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, which, they claim, have not done enough to address the deadly conflict between public health and law enforcement approaches to drug use.   

"Around the world, drug users are being tortured in the name of medical treatment.  The UN needs to call torture, torture and define what real drug treatment is," said Dimitri Mugianis from NYCAHN/VOCAL, a drug users union in New York, USA.