The World Health Organization (WHO) and UNAIDS have released a joint statement on HIV testing services that reinforces two key principles that ensure a human rights-based and public health approach to HIV testing.

The statement says that HIV testing, no matter how it is delivered, must always respect personal choice and adhere to ethical and human rights principles. It makes it clear that WHO and UNAIDS do not recommend mandatory, compulsory or coerced HIV testing of individuals on public health grounds.

The statement also explains that in order to minimize the risk of HIV misdiagnosis, all providers of HIV testing services must use HIV test kits and testing procedures that meet WHO quality standards or other equivalent national or regional quality standards. Testing procedures must be validated in each setting, depending on the population HIV prevalence. Regular external quality assurance should also be in place in order to rapidly detect potential causes of HIV misdiagnosis.

The position of WHO and UNAIDS is that no one should be given an HIV-positive diagnosis on the basis of a single positive HIV test result. National HIV testing procedures should be followed to confirm an HIV-positive test result and everyone should be re-tested before starting on lifelong antiretroviral therapy.

Ending AIDS: progress towards the 90–90–90 targets

 estimates that only 70% of people living with HIV are aware of their HIV status. This is the first of the 90–90–90 targets, whereby, by 2020, 90% of people living with HIV know their status, 90% of people living with HIV who know their status are receiving antiretroviral treatment and 90% of people on treatment have suppressed viral loads.

WHO, UNAIDS statement on HIV testing services: new opportunities and ongoing challenges

The West Africa Drug Policy Network - Cote d'Ivoire Chapter in collaboration with the West Africa Civil Society Institute (WACSI) and with support from the Open Society Initiative for West Africa (OSIWA) held a national dialogue on ISTC Radio - Cote d'Ivoire from 28 to 30 August, 2017 to engage community citizens on the necessity to have drug policies grounded on human rights, public health and harm reduction.The dialogues involved 3 panels made of civil society organisations (Day 1), formal drug users (Day 2) and representatives of governments institutions (Day 3).

Keep up-to-date with drug policy developments by subscribing to the IDPC Monthly Alert.

National dialogue on drug policy reform in Cote D'Ivoire

How does the war on drugs affect women? Is it really so different from how it affects men? Our knowledge was very limited before we interviewed the participants of an international workshop in Budapest. Please watch our video report and read our article!

It was impressive to enter a room full of women – actually only women, both in the audience and on the speakers’ podium. I have never been at a female-only workshop before I came to interview the participants of a workshop on the gendered impacts of the war on drugs in Budapest, organised by the CEU School of Public Policy. For a moment I could empathise with those women who join a workshop full of males. Of course what I felt was amusement, whereas what they feel is more like intimidation in a world dominated by men.

In this world, as feminists say, almost every phenomena in our political, social, and economic life is constructed from the male perspective. The war on drugs is not an exception. The notion that there are overlooked gendered impacts of the war on drugs seems obvious.

The gendered impacts of the war on drugs

In South Africa, people who use drugs are disproportionally affected by HIV, partly because of criminalisation and stigmatisation. During the South Africa Drug Policy Week in Cape Town (July-August 2017), the International Network of People who Use Drugs (INPUD) worked with South African networks to formalise the new South African Network of People who Use Drugs (SANPUD).

Through Bridging the Gaps, alliance partner INPUD has supported networks of people who use drugs for several years to enable them to promote their health and defend their rights. During the Policy Week, INPUD also gathered feedback from members of the Cape Town Network for People Using Drugs (CANPUD). The information will be used for a new INPUD publication on lessons learnt in network formation and development.

Keep up-to-date with drug policy developments by subscribing to the IDPC Monthly Alert.

South African Network of People who Use Drugs officially launched

Seven Canadian indigenous tribes have declared a state of emergency due to a worsening drug crisis.

Manitoba's Dakota Ojibway Tribal Council says addiction to opioids, crack and methamphetamine is causing crime, suicide and health problems.

The problem is so bad they say 60% of babies are put on morphine after birth because of their mother's addiction.

Chiefs from seven First Nations are asking for the government's help to set up a treatment centre.

"When I see our grandmothers, who are on prescription drugs, handing them out, it is purveyed right through our communities now, from our grandmothers and grandfathers down," Chief Kenneth Chalmers, Dakota Ojibway Tribal Council chairperson, said during a press conference on Wednesday.

"We get the violence with the alcohol but this is a different thing — it is becoming ultra-violence."

Canada First Nations declare drugs state of emergency

Hamilton County, Ohio, will distribute 30,000 doses of an overdose-reversing drug to try to stop a rash of deaths that has besieged the area.

In what is believed to be the first program and clinical study of its kind in the country, the county will partner with hospitals, jails, faith-based groups and syringe exchanges that will distribute the medication, naloxone. The goal is to get it as close to people who are using drugs as possible to save their lives should they overdose.

Officials will gather and analyze data to answer this question: What would happen to the rate of opioid-related overdose deaths if a community were to be completely saturated with naloxone?

"The bottom line here," said Hamilton County Health Commissioner Tim Ingram, "is this is about saving people's lives and giving them a second and third chance at life and getting them into treatment so they can be treated for this disease of opioid addiction."

An Ohio county will distribute 30,000 doses of a drug used to reverse opioid overdoses

The Philippines is set to give an annual budget of just 1,000 pesos (£15) to its human rights body amid the country's brutal war on drugs.

The drastic cut to the Commission on Human Rights' (CHR) budget was supported by 119 politicians to just 32 in the country's congress.

But critics say the move is punishment for the body's staunch criticism of President Rodrigo Duterte's war on drugs and the public body's efforts to investigate thousands of killings over the past 15 months.

The number of deaths has attracted international criticism.

But Pantaleon Alvarez, the speaker of the House of Representatives, the lower house of the country's Congress, defended the funding plan.

He told local television that the commission deserved the small budget for being "useless" and defending criminals' rights.

But Congressman Edcel Lagman said the president's supporters were "virtually imposing the death penalty on a constitutionally created and mandated office".

The CHR had requested a budget of 1.72bn pesos (£25m) for 2018, but the government proposed less than half that.

On the second reading of the legislation, Congress voted to slash that to just 1,000 pesos (£25). The 2017 budget for the CHR was 749m pesos (£11m)

Philippines cuts its human rights budget to £15

The number of patients admitted to hospital for overdosing on powerful and potentially addictive opioid painkillers has more than doubled in a decade, with doctors saying it is the “very worrying” consequence of the drugs being prescribed too readily.

Data from NHS Digital shows an increase in people attending hospital with poisoning from prescription opioids such as codeine, morphine, oxycodone and fentanyl rising from 4,891 in 2005-06 to 11,660 last year in England.

Dr Jane Quinlan, a consultant in anaesthesia and pain management at Oxford University Hospitals NHS foundation trust, described the increase as “very worrying”.

Overdoses on opioid painkillers more than double in a decade

U.S. President Donald Trump is threatening that he may decertify Colombia as a partner in the war against drugs unless the South American nation reverses a record surge in cocaine production.

The shock rebuke for Washington’s staunchest ally in Latin America came Wednesday in the White House’s annual designation of nations it deems major drug-producing or drug-transit zones.

Colombia, the source of 90 percent of the cocaine consumed in the U.S., has long been a fixture on the list, which was unchanged from last year. But not since the late 1990s, when contributions from the Cali cartel funded the campaign of Colombia’s then-President Ernesto Samper, has the country’s commitment to fighting narcotics trafficking been called into question by Washington.

Twenty-two countries were designated by the U.S. as major drug transit zones Wednesday, and only Venezuela and Bolivia were deemed once again not to be fulfilling their international obligations to combat drug production and trafficking. The leftist governments of both those nations are hostile to the U.S.

Trump delivers shock rebuke to Colombia over cocaine surge

ASEAN countries continue to mete out extreme punishments against people suspected of using or selling drugs. Human rights advocates are concerned that President Rodrigo Duterte’s brutal drug suppression tactics, which have led to an estimated 12,000 people killed in the Philippines since June 2016, have emboldened other countries in the region to take similarly harsh measures. Amnesty International recently highlighted its concern in Indonesia, having documented at least 60 killings of drug suspects there this year. The rise in killings of alleged drug suspects follows the rhetorical sanction of such behavior by political leaders: in Indonesia’s case, both the head of the Narcotics Division and President Joko Widodo vocalized support for being “merciless” toward drug dealers.

In Cambodia, the arrest of people who use drugs continues to escalate since the initiation of a campaign against drug trafficking and use. By July, 9400 alleged drug users were arrested. While the impact of arrests on curbing drug use and trafficking has been questionable, the rising number of people arrested has strained the detention centers in that country. Cambodia’s detention centers have long been criticized by rights advocates for their lack of appropriate living conditions and access to health services, and for physical abuse, among other rights violations. With swelling arrests and long periods of pre-trial detention, conditions at the centers have worsened. The UN Special Rapporteur for Cambodia conveyed evidence of such conditions at her meeting with the Ministry of Social Affairs following her visit to Prey Speu, a detention center that the country’s Prime Minister had recommended in 2016 be improved or shut down.

People who use drugs are a UNAIDS “key population” requiring more attention and evidence-based support in order to reach global targets to end HIV/AIDS. This worsening environment further undermines, rather than protects, their legal status and human rights.

Thumbnail Flickr CC Office of Public Affairs

Across Southeast Asia, people who use drugs continue to suffer arbitrary arrest and detention

The Ontario government announced Friday that it will create a cannabis control board and open up to 60 storefronts in the first year to manage the sale and distribution of marijuana in the province.

Ontario ministers announced the measures at morning press conference.

The plans include restricting marijuana sales to those 19 and older, a year above the minimum age recommended by the federal government's cannabis task force report in December.

The stores selling marijuana to the public will not be housed inside existing LCBO stores as Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne had previously suggested.

Illegal pot shops in Ontario would be shut down over the next 12 months.

Ontario to create cannabis control board, open up storefronts

An international conference bringing together hepatitis C experts from around the world is today calling for strategies to prioritise people who use drugs, saying hepatitis C elimination is impossible without them.

"The number of people around the world dying from hepatitis C is increasing. We have the tools to reverse this trend, to eliminate this disease and save millions of lives. But it will not happen until people who use drugs become a focus of our efforts," said Associate Professor Jason Grebely, President of the International Network of Hepatitis C in Substance Users(INHSU), the convenors of the conference.

Hepatitis C is a blood borne virus that if left untreated can result in cirrhosis, liver cancer, and liver failure. Globally, there is an estimated 71.1 million people with chronic hepatitis C, resulting in over 700 000 deaths each year and the numbers are increasing. Eight per cent of those living with the disease and almost a quarter of new infections are in people who use drugs.

New, highly effective curative treatments have sparked hope of a world free of hepatitis C. Countries like Australia are currently on track to eliminate the disease as a public health concern by 2026 thanks to a public health strategy that offers treatment to all without restriction, and the prioritisation of people who use drugs. However in the US and many countries globally, hepatitis C testing, linkage to care, and treatment for people who use drugs remain low.

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