CURB AIDS AND HIV BY DECRIMINALISING DRUGS, SAY EXPERTS

The use of illicit drugs must be decriminalised if efforts to halt
the spread of Aids are to succeed, one of the world's leading
independent authorities on the disease has warned.

In an unprecedented attack on global drugs policy, Michele
Kazatchkine, head of the influential Global Fund to Fight Aids,
Tuberculosis and Malaria, has told the Observer that, without a
radical overhaul of laws that lead to hundreds of thousands of drug
users being imprisoned or denied access to safe treatment, the
millions of pounds spent on fighting HIV and Aids will be wasted.

Kazatchkine will use his keynote speech at the 20th International
Harm Reduction Association conference tomorrow in Bangkok to expose
the failures of policies which treat addiction as a crime. He will
accuse governments of using what he calls "repressive" measures that
deny addicts human rights rather than putting public health needs first.

He will argue that governments should fully commit to the widespread
provision of harm reduction strategies aimed at intravenous drug
users, such as free needle exchanges and providing substitutes to
illicit drugs, such as methadone.

"A repressive way of dealing with drug users is a way of facilitating
the spread of the [HIV/Aids] epidemic," Kazatchkine said. "If you
know you will be arrested, you will not go for treatment. I say drug
use cannot be criminalised. I'm talking about criminalising
trafficking but not users. From a scientific perspective, I cannot
understand the repressive policy perspective."

He condemns policymakers who argue that, because drug users
frequently turn to crime to fund their habit, it justifies making it
a criminal justice issue. Harm reduction both helps the addict and
wider society and reduces the need to commit crime, he said.

"The one population where [Aids] mortality has been untouched - and
in fact has worsened - has been IV [intravenous] drug users. It's
amazing, because what we call harm reduction, such as exchanging
needles, has been scientifically proven as the most effective.

"This is why I will most probably start my speech in Bangkok by
mentioning the contrast between major progress achieved in decreasing
mortality from Aids in the poorest countries of the world versus the
total lack of progress for what is the main route of transmission in
most parts of the world outside Africa."

Kazatchkine suggested that politicians feared that the public would
label them soft on drugs. A doctor and respected Aids expert with 20
years in the field, he has in his two years at the helm of the Global
Fund overseen some of the most dramatic improvements in treatment and
prevention of HIV globally.

Since it was established in 2001, the fund has received $21bn in
contributions from the world's wealthiest nations and used it to play
a significant part in reducing rates of new HIV infections. It has
also contributed to the distribution of much needed life-preserving
anti-retroviral drugs to millions of people already diagnosed.

Alex Stevens, a senior research fellow specialising in drugs and
criminalisation at the University of Kent, said tomorrow's speech
would highlight many of the troubling consequences of criminal
justice approaches to drugs policy.

"In many countries, serious human rights infringements are committed
in the name of fighting drugs," he said. "These include the use of
the death penalty for drug offences, compulsory treatment regimes
that include methods (such as physical beatings) that are akin to
torture, and, for example in the USA, depriving convicted drug law
offenders of the right to vote."

Stevens said that, while the UK was ahead of many other countries on
harm reduction, its tendency to criminalise drug users could
undermine its efforts.

What is needed, Kazatchkine will argue tomorrow, is a total rethink
of drugs policies. "What I'm saying is that government's function is
to protect their citizens. This is why harm reduction should be
supported by all governments everywhere."