Drug Policy

Injecting drug use is estimated to account for nearly one third of new HIV infections but less than 8 per cent of injecting drug users are reached by HIV prevention services. The scaling up of HIV prevention and even more so care and treatment for drug users is lagging behind in the overall aids response.

Illegal drug use is a social problem and should be treated as such. Excessive reliance on law enforcement and punishment is particularly counter productive to decreasing high HIV transmission among injective drug users as they are driven to hide where they have no access to health services or information.

Instead we should foster the right to seek, receive and impart information related to HIV/AIDS prevention, including educational materials and information related to HIV/AIDS transmission risks and prevention measures especially among special behaviour groups such as injecting drug users- without censorship or liability for aiding or abetting criminal offences.

Injective drug users belong to the most underserved group of civil society because of the high number of low income people using illegal drugs in a more intensive and damaging manner. They are contracted with illegality of their activities and stigmatizing attitudes and those involved in severe drug consumption face great barriers to integrating socially and in the work place.