Many stereotypes are ascribed to drug users, almost all of them negative. Of course, people who use drugs are just as diverse as the general population. But if there is one thing many of us are, it is resourceful.

We are also used to social exclusion, and we have ways of handling it.

Recently in South Africa, drug users, harm reductionists and advocates pooled resources, seized an opportunity to overcome exclusion, and produced something hugely positive and important.

The International AIDS Society (IAS) conference, AIDS2016, was held in Durban last week, from July 18-22. Its theme was “Access Equity Rights Now” and one of its supposed objectives was promoting the needs of key populations left behind in the prevention and treatment of HIV/AIDS.

So you’d have expected to hear a lot there about people who use drugs and their rights, a lot about harm reduction and drug policy—including calls for decriminalization.

Unfortunately this was not to be, as I wrote last week for the Open Society Foundations (OSF). Tellingly, of the 446 abstracts submitted for the conference that contained the the phrases “harm reduction,” “drug use” or “drug policy,” only six were accepted for oral presentation. Unforgivably, when around two million people are living with HIV related to injecting drug use, drug users were mostly ignored.

Although the main conference failed in this respect, a simultaneous event sought to address the real needs of people who use drugs—and I was proud to be involved.

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"I have rights like any other person" - How the world's drug users created something great in Durban last week

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Thumbnail: Flickr CC Norwegian Mission to the UN

Встреча высокого уровня по ВИЧ/СПИДу в Нью Йорке

The week of 6-10 June 2016 in New York was marked by the High-Level Meeting on AIDS where the states, members of organizations, were talking about the progress achieved since 2011, about the actions required in future and also made commitments to implement the global action plan to eliminate AIDS by 2030.

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

High-level Meeting on HIV / AIDS in New York

Toronto city council has approved the creation of three safe injection sites in the downtown core.

Council voted 36-3 in favour of the motion at its meeting Thursday.

The Toronto Board of Health unanimously supported the creation of the sites in early July, and families of drug users have backed them, as well. Councillors were warned drug overdoses are going up in the city, and that something needs to be done about the public health issue.

The sites, which are aimed at providing a safe environment for drug users, are expected to be installed at three locations in the downtown core.

Safe injection is already legal in Canada, as long as the federal government grants approval under Bill C-2. Federal Health Minister Jane Philpott told CBC News in March that supervised injection sites are among a number of strategies the government has put forward to cope with drug abuse and overdose deaths.

The Toronto Board of Health recommended three sites, which the city plans to ask the province to fund, including the Toronto Public Health office near Dundas and Victoria streets, the South Riverdale Community Health Clinic and the Queen West-Central Toronto Community Health Centre.

Both Toronto Mayor John Tory and Toronto police Chief Mark Saunders backed the creation of the sites, despite concerns from critics that they may encourage drug use.

Toronto city councillors vote in favour of safe injection sites

Ever wonder what the world will look like in 2030? Will there be driverless cars, David Bowie hologram concerts, a self-sufficient Africa or even Blue Ivy headlining Glastonbury? These things are all unknown but what is certain, viral hepatitis can be eliminated if we take action now.

Today, on World Hepatitis Day (July 28th), the World Hepatitis Alliance is launching NOhep, a global movement to eliminate viral hepatitis by 2030. The movement is calling on people across the world to sign up to the movement and take action to make the elimination of viral hepatitis our next greatest achievement.

Viral hepatitis, an inflammation of the liver due to a virus, is the 7th leading cause of death globally, accounting for 1.4 million deaths per year – more than HIV/AIDS or malaria. The most common of the viruses are hepatitis B and C, which affect up to 400 million worldwide and cause 80% of liver cancer deaths worldwide.

“We have the right to treatment for a cancer-causing virus” said Raquel Peck, CEO of World Hepatitis Alliance. “Let’s join together on World Hepatitis Day to stop millions of needless deaths and ensure everybody receives life-saving medication because only then we will have a world with “NOhep”. said Raquel Peck, CEO of the World Hepatitis Alliance and NOhepitivist

NOhep’s fundamental objective is to build awareness of viral hepatitis and the crucial role people can play, in their own lives, at more structural levels and in their communities, to help eliminate viral hepatitis by 2030. Based on the premise of social justice, NOhep is calling on all levels of society to take action to ensure the elimination of viral hepatitis is our next greatest achievement.

Nothing like this has ever been done for hepatitis before, and now, with the adoption of the World Health Organization’s Viral Hepatitis Strategy and the commitment by 194 governments to eliminate viral hepatitis, it can be a reality. By 2030, NOhep hopes to bring people together to save 7.1 million lives, by raising global awareness of hepatitis, helping those affected by hepatitis to speak up and by pressing governments to scale up resources to meet the targets outlined the strategy.

We may not know if The Simpsons will still be running, nor if our dogs will be able to speak to us by 2030, but one thing is for sure, if we take action today we can help eliminate viral hepatitis. If you want to find out more what could happen in 2030, watch the ‘2030 Year in Review’ video and join the movement at NOhep.org.

Achieving a world with “NOhep” to eliminate viral hepatitis by 2030

Somsak Sreesomsong was 18 when he was jailed for selling illegal drugs. Now, turning 30, he is not yet half-way through his 33-year sentence at Bangkok's high-security Klong Prem prison.

Somsak was "just a kid, not a big-time dealer", his older brother Panit told Reuters after a visit to the jail. "We're also serving time, waiting for him to get out so he can help the family."

More than a decade after Thailand declared a "war on drugs", the country is admitting defeat. As the prison population soars, Justice Minister Paiboon Koomchaya told Reuters he was looking at changes to the country's draconian drug laws.

"I want to de-classify methamphetamine but Thailand is not ready yet," said Gen Paiboon, meaning downgrading the drug, popularly known as "meth", from a Category 1 substance, which would reduce jail time for possession or dealing.

Use of methamphetamine is spiralling across Southeast Asia, and authorities are struggling to respond.

In Thailand, bulging prisons prompt rethink of drug war

By The United States President's Emergency Pan for AIDS Relief

PEPFAR’s stakeholders and partners (community and civil society members, multilateral partners, and host governments) are a critical part of efforts toward achieving sustained control of the HIV/AIDS epidemic and, ultimately, an AIDS-free generation. All stakeholders, partners, and other interested parties are invited to provide thoughts, comments, feedback on the implementation and planning of the recently announced $100 million Key Populations Investment Fund.

 The Key Populations Investment Fund was announced during the 2016 United Nations High-Level Meeting on Ending AIDS. It will support both proven and innovative, tailored, community-led approaches to address critical issues and gaps that exist for key populations in the HIV/AIDS response. Key populations are defined per the UNAIDS definition which includes:

gay men and other men who have sex with men,

The fund will address the complex issues that create barriers to HIV prevention and treatment services that continue to keep these communities at the margins of the AIDS response. These include:

acceptance of human rights of all persons, without distinction;

access to quality services for key populations;

systematic and rigorous monitoring of stigma and discrimination combined with clear actions to mitigate stigma and discrimination;

availability of data on population size and utilization of prevention & treatment services by key populations; and

improving the capacity of key populations-led community based organizations to advocate for changes in policies and directly implement services.

Key populations investment fund feedback collection form

New Zealand’s much heralded regulation of new psychoactive substances (NPS) appears be at a complete standstill after its introduction three years ago, raising the question: what went wrong?

The 2013 Psychoactive Substances Act (PSA) sought to introduce a full regulatory system for NPS and take control of what was a burgeoning market in these drugs.

The first of its kind in attempting to bring NPS into the licit market, the PSA places the onus on manufacturers to prove that their products pose a low risk of harm. Only once this is shown will a drug be licensed for sale.

As part of a temporary measure to transition from an illegal to regulated market in NPS, the government granted interim exemptions to approximately 40 NPS. However, these interim licenses were suddenly revoked in 2014 in a move seemingly driven by media scaremongering rather than any sound scientific evidence, as TalkingDrugs reported at the time. Thus, all NPS were banned.

Further to the removal of interim exemptions, a moratorium was placed on all applications for a license to produce NPS until the accompanying Psychoactive Substances Regulations (PSR) were finalised. These regulations outline the process for proving that a product poses a low risk of harm and came into effect on November 3, 2014.

New Zealand’s regulation of new psychoactive substances doomed to fail

An independent music festival in Cambridgeshire has become the first UK event of its kind to offer people the chance to have their illegal drugs tested to establish their content before they take them.

About 200 individuals took advantage of the unique testing facility, brokered in agreement with the local police and council, at this weekend’s Secret Garden Party, an annual arts and music festival on a Georgian farming estate near Huntingdon.

Freddie Fellowes, who founded the festival 12 years ago, said he was “thrilled” to be able to pioneer the service. “Harm reduction and welfare is a vital part of hosting any event and it’s an area that for too long has seen little development or advancement,” he said.

Festivalgoers were offered the tests as part of a 10-minute package of health and safety advice provided by The Loop, an organisation that conducts forensic testing of drugs at festivals and nightclubs and offers associated welfare support.

Thumbnail: Flickr CC Tortuga Music Festival

Secret Garden Party pioneers drugs testing service for festivalgoers in Cambridgeshire

As advocates, officials, and health care professionals gather in Durban, South Africa this week for the International AIDS Society’s AIDS2016 conference, another group of people have moved out—and not by choice. In an attempt to make Durban appear more attractive to attendees of one of the world’s largest conferences on any global health or development issue, homeless people, drug dealers, and sex workers were removed from the central city. In other words, the very people who are at increased risk of contracting HIV and not receiving treatment are now even more vulnerable, and essentially rendered invisible.

The sanitization of the city set the tone for the conference. For instance, organizations like UNAIDS have called for increased investment in harm reduction and HIV prevention measures for people who use drugs—calls that are echoed around the globe by civil society and activists. And indeed, one of the AIDS2016 conference’s stated objectives is “promoting HIV responses that are supported by and tailored to the needs of at-risk populations or people living with HIV,” including people who use drugs.

Yet people who use drugs are largely ignored inside the conference. What’s more, of the 446 abstracts that contain the keywords “harm reduction,” “drug use,” and “drug policy,” only six were accepted for oral presentation and three for poster discussion—an exceedingly small number considering how important this population is considered by those trying to end AIDS by 2030.

Thumbnail: Flickr CC World Bank Photo Collection

How an AIDS Conference sidelined an at-risk population

The Human Rights and Demands of People who Use Drugs

Last year, INPUD published our Consensus Statement on Drug Use under Prohibition. It emphasised the fundamental human rights of people who use drugs, and the demands which must be met in order for those human rights to be realised. It emphatically stated that people who use drugs are entitled to their human rights, which must be protected by the rule of law, and that we have the right to life and security of person. And it emphasised that people who use drugs have the right not to be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment.

Let us not be vague: people who use drugs are being killed. People have continued to die as a result of the drugs they use being of unknown purity and content due to their black market production – which demonstrably and directly results from prohibition. Opposition to harm reduction interventions has continued to drive catastrophically high incidence and prevalence of blood-borne infections like HIV and hepatitis C. And the cost of treatment for hepatitis C – the most important infection affecting people who inject drugs – has resulted in people continuing to die utterly needlessly from an entirely curable disease. Compounding this, the lack of access to antiretroviral drugs for people living with HIV has similarly resulted in ongoing and preventable morbidity and mortality.

In recent weeks, the Philippines has seen the horrific and brutal extrajudicial killing of scores of people who use drugs, killing that has not only been endorsed, but actively encouraged by the state. This murdering has not occurred in a vacuum: killing and torture of people who use drugs occurs in many states, as we have documented time and time again, and Indonesia has, in recent months, executed numerous people for drug-related offences, with more waiting on death row.

All of this is as a direct result of ongoing criminalisation, stigmatisation, and discrimination towards people who use drugs, a result of the human rights of people who use drugs being systemically and repeatedly violated. This moment could have been a time of hope and considerable progress. The United Nations General Assembly Special Session on Drugs 2016 took place earlier in the year, but instead of marking the beginning of the end of the war on drugs, a war that has wrought untold horrors, the UNGASS outcome document failed to even take specific account of the needs and rights of people who use drugs, the community most considerably impacted by punitive prohibition.

Thumbnail: Drug Users Remembrance Day 2016 poster

International Drug Users Remembrance Day 2016

Ten exceptional community-based organizations have won the 2016 Red Ribbon Award for their inspiring work towards ending or reducing the impact of the AIDS epidemic. They were presented with the prize in a special session at the 21st International AIDS Conference (AIDS 2016) in Durban, South Africa.

“Across regions and cultures, communities are showing the world that ending AIDS is possible. Their courage, innovation and leadership is helping us overcome barriers and better respond to the needs of those most affected by the epidemic.” said UNAIDS Executive Director Michel Sidibe.

The 2016 winning organizations are from Burundi, Mexico, Belize, Kenya, Nigeria, Iran (Islamic Republic of), Nepal, Chile, and New Zealand. Almost 1,000 nominations were received from more than 120 countries, for the Award, which is hosted by UNAIDS in partnership with AIDS 2016, the Global Network of People Living with HIV, the International Community of Women Living with HIV/AIDS, the International Council of AIDS Service Organizations and Irish Aid. A global panel of civil society representatives selected the finalists from a shortlist determined by regional panels.

NB. YouthRise Nigeria received the award under the category 'Just, Peaceful, & Inclusive Societies (SDG 16)'