HIV Prevention, Drug Use, and Human Rights

The HIV epidemic in Asia and the former Soviet Union is inextricably linked to injection drug use. In Russia, China, and a growing number of other countries, injection drug use accounts for the majority of HIV infections, and raises critical questions for policymakers about how to preserve public health and human rights.

In the United States, drug addiction causes tremendous devastation by contributing to HIV and hepatitis infection, overdose death, crime, disproportionate rates of incarceration of people of color, family dysfunction, and unemployment. The best-kept secret in the war on drugs for the past 30 years is that drug addiction treatment is highly effective in reducing drug use, crime, and the spread of disease, but it remains in short supply.

OSI-Washington, D.C., presented a panel discussion on U.S. and international experience with HIV prevention, drug use, and human rights. The panel featured:

• Daniel Wolfe, Deputy Director of OSI's International Harm Reduction Development Program;
• Robert Schwartz, M.D., Director of OSI-Baltimore’s Drug Addiction Treatment Program.

The discussion was moderated by Stephen Rickard, Director of OSI’s Washington, D.C., office.