IHRD Releases Report Linking UN Drug Conventions and HIV Explosion

UN DRUG CONTROL EFFORTS CONTRIBUTE TO HIV EXPLOSION
Russia and Ukraine see 1800% increase in infections through injection drug use

The Open Society Institute (OSI) released a report today showing that strict UN drug control treaties directly undermine HIV prevention efforts by discouraging countries from implementing effective, realistic and compassionate public health measures. At a major UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs conference this week, OSI will call for the participants to amend UN drug policy to protect public health and human rights.

In an attempt to comply with UN treaties, Russia and Ukraine have introduced harsh anti-drug measures at the expense of HIV prevention programs. By ignoring the health consequences of widespread injection drug use—the main route of HIV infection in those countries—they now have the world’s fastest growing epidemic.

“In countries that are experiencing a rapid increase of drug use, the reflex reaction is to become tougher on drug users,” said Kasia Malinowska-Sempruch, director of OSI’s International Harm Reduction Development Program. “Locking up users in prisons is not a solution. It only serves to drive users underground, making them less likely to seek out what few services do exist for them.”

As many as one million Russians and 400,000 Ukrainians are HIV positive; nearly 90% have been infected through injection drug use. New infections have increased by more than 18 times since 1998 and continue to skyrocket. Aggressive anti-drug laws have led to frequent police harassment and social marginalization of drug users, further aggravating the problem.

The spread of HIV is not only a public health concern. Many predict that soaring rates of HIV infection will foster economic instability and regional insecurity. The World Bank Group has estimated that if current trends continue, by 2010 HIV/AIDS will cause up to a 4.15% decline in Russia’s GDP and a 13.2% reduction in economic growth. Others have predicted that HIV will have a disastrous impact on military service, higher education, and the labor market—all of which have already experienced a serious decline in Russia and Ukraine.

According to Russian Minister of Internal Affairs Boris Gryzlov, Russia’s drug policies were “not the government’s own initiative…but rather the result of our responsibility to implement the UN drug conventions of 1961, 1971, and 1988.”

HIV epidemics are on the verge of appearing in Iran, Pakistan and throughout Central Asia, where drug injection has recently become more common. Drug-related HIV infections also remain a serious issue in countries that have maintained a “war on drugs” approach. More than one-third of all HIV infections in the United States are drug related.

The UN drug conventions were developed decades before HIV/AIDS was identified, and do not appropriately address the realities of today’s growing pandemic. The treaties directly contradict the positions on drug use adopted at the 2001 UN General Assembly Special Session on HIV/AIDS. Both UNAIDS and the World Health Organization have recommended public health based approaches to drug use as the only way to effectively combat the spread of HIV in the former Soviet Union.

• OSI urges the Commission on Narcotic Drugs and national governments to consider the following policy recommendations, which would have a substantial impact on slowing the spread of HIV/AIDS:
• Antidiscrimination and equal-protection laws in all countries should be amended to guarantee the civil liberties and human rights of drug users and people living with HIV.
• UN drug conventions should encourage national governments to treat drug use primarily as a public health issue, and government policies should be crafted to reflect this accordingly.
• National governments should be encouraged to ensure that all people are provided with information and services that enable them to protect their health. Programs concerning drug use and HIV should encompass a full range of pragmatic, inclusive and accessible harm reduction services, from education and drug treatment to substitution therapy and needle exchange. In particular, drug conventions and national laws should include provisions that explicitly legalize needle exchange and the use of methadone for treatment purposes.
• Drug users and their advocates should be involved at all levels of decision making when developing policies related to drug use at both the international and national levels.

“The Commission on Narcotic Drugs must heed the call to restructure its strategies and goals,” said OSI President Aryeh Neier. “Failure to do so will only exacerbate the HIV epidemic and contribute to the deaths of thousands of vulnerable people.”

A Press Presentation will be held at the Vienna International Center, Room C-0343, on Tuesday 15 April at 13:00. For more information about attending the press conference, arranging interviews with program representatives, or receiving printed materials, please contact Kasia Malinowska-Sempruch at +1 917 9512384 

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The Open Society Institute (OSI), a private operating and grantmaking foundation based in New York City, implements a range of initiatives to promote open society by shaping government policy and supporting education, media, public health, and human and women’s rights, as well as social, legal, and economic reform. To foster open society on a global level, OSI aims to bring together a larger Open Society Network of other nongovernmental organizations, international institutions, and government agencies. OSI was created in 1993 by investor and philanthropist George Soros to support his foundations in Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. Those foundations were established, starting in 1984, to help former communist countries in their transition to democracy. OSI has expanded the activities of the Soros foundations network to other areas of the world where the transition to democracy is of particular concern. The network encompasses more than 50 countries with initiatives in Africa, Central Asia and the Caucasus, Latin America, and Southeast Asia, as well as in Haiti, Mongolia, and Turkey. OSI also supports programs in the United States and selected projects elsewhere in the world.