Why UNDP must get up to date on drug use, the law and human rights

The rug gets pulled out from under the feet of Helen Clark, The administrator of UNDP -United Nations Development Programme  as her popular and progressive views on human rights and drug use are publicly retracted by  own agency’s Secretariat. (Note: Helen was also formally the PM of New Zealand, Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Why UNDP needs to get its act together on human rights and the pursuit of the war on drugs. Written by: Eliot Ross Albers Executive Director, International Network of People who Use Drugs

eliotalbers@inpud.net

Helen Clark, Administrator of the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), recently conducted an interview with Reuters in Mexico in which she made a number of very welcome statements on the failures of the current global drug control regime. It is especially appropriate that she should make such comments, considering that last year her agency commissioned the Global Commission on HIV and the Law to publish a report – ‘Risks, Rights and Health’ - that made a series of strikingly progressive recommendations on the need for a thorough overhaul of global prohibition. Subsequently the UNDP Secretariat issued a highly problematic statement claiming that Ms. Clark had been misrepresented, and that went on to take a position that directly undermined the findings of the report, and so called into question UNDP’s understanding of the conflict between the current drug control regime and human rights norms.

Ms. Clark’s comments align well with the tone and evidence-based findings of the Global Commission’s report in three key areas. Firstly, she argued that “the health position would be to treat the issue of drugs as primarily a health and social issue rather than a criminalized issue”, the report similarly called upon countries to “reform their approach to drug use. Rather than punishing people who use drugs who do no harm to others, they must offer them access to effective HIV and health services”. Secondly, she stressed that “[o]nce you criminalize, you put very big stakes around. Of course, our world has proceeded on the basis that criminalization is the approach,” which again reiterates the report’s finding that criminalizing drug use is bad for society at large and encourages “the spread of HIV and keep[s] users from accessing services for HIV and health care”. Thirdly, Ms Clark welcomed the recent moves towards drug law reform in several Latin American countries, noting: “the approach being followed has failed so we need a fresh set of eyes on this as well. And I think the debate going on at the regional level is a very, very useful one”. This third point backed up one of the most important recommendations made by the Global Commission’s report, which called upon countries to “review and reform relevant international laws and bodies […] including the UN international drug control conventions” and, very significantly, “the International Narcotics Control Board”.

Where I had so welcomed Ms. Clark’s remarks which had so strongly reiterated the message conveyed by the report of the Global Commission, my disappointment at the subsequently published retraction from the UNDP secretariat (UNDP Sets Record Straight on Drugs Debate) was especially acute. The retraction is problematic not least because it appears to set UNDP’s official position on drug policy in direct opposition to that set out in the Global Commission’s report, a report that was based on extensive research and global consultations and which is in line with public health, human rights and with international development imperatives.

The most glaring conflict between the UNDP retraction and the report of the Global Commission is the statement that “UNDP shares the view that existing drug-control treaties are among the best available tools for addressing the world drug problem and for protecting humanity from the suffering caused by drug abuse and its impacts, such as drug-related crime and violence, of trafficking and of the illicit cultivation and production of drugs”. Yet the Commission’s report found that the treaties, and specifically the International Narcotics Control Board (INCB), far from being “the best available tools for addressing the world drug problem”, are instead the very sources of those drug-related harms and problems. The Commission stresses that these controls and criminalisation are themselves the drivers of the human rights abuses and public health problems to which people who use illegal drugs – particularly those who inject – are systematically subject.

Emblem of the United Nations. Just how ‘united’ is it? (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The explicit endorsement of “the position of the UN International Narcotics Control Board (INCB)” is perhaps the most problematic statement contained in the retraction, not least because within the UNAIDS partnership, UNDP has specific responsibility for, and is the lead agency on, human rights. Given the atrocious human rights record of the INCB and the UNDP’s position as the lead agency on the subject, this raises a whole series of problems in addition to the fact that the retraction now positions the UNDP in direct conflict with the position of the report of the Global Commission.

And why is endorsing INCB so problematic? In recent years INCB has consistently failed to condemn human rights atrocities – including torture and the death penalty – carried out in the name of drug control. Specifically, during an INCB country visit to Saudi Arabia in 2012, a man was executed on a minor drugs offence. Yet the INCB praised the Saudi government in its annual report for their “commitment” to drug control, making no mention of the beheading that occurred during its visit, nor indeed of the 16 or more other executions carried out in the country in the same year, most of them similarly for minor drugs offences. As Harm Reduction International(HRI) have repeatedly pointed out in their continually updated Death Penalty Reports, the use of the death penalty for drugs offences is a clear violation of international law, and a systematic result of the punitive approach to drug control that Ms. Clark so clearly condemned in her interview. More than just omission, the INCB has regularly praised governments such as that of Thailand, whose pursuit of punitive approaches to drug control have systematically breached human rights, most gruesomely in the form of a wave of extrajudicial killings that led to almost 3,000 deaths in 2003, as well as the operation of detention camps masquerading as treatment facilities. With regards these killings in 2003, the INCB report noted that “killings had taken place during the “war on drugs” and it wished to gather comprehensive information regarding the campaign and the measures and action that had subsequently been taken”; nowhere, however, were these killings – that had resulted from the war on drugs the INCB so endorses – condemned.

In addition to remaining silent on gross human rights abuses committed in the name of drug control, the INCB has chosen to condemn countries that have led in innovation on comprehensive harm reduction measures, precisely the measures recommended in the report of the Global Commission. Specifically, the INCB in its most recent report condemned both Canada and Denmark for opening supervised injecting rooms, claiming (in my opinion, quite incorrectly), that they were at odds with the drug control treaties. With this record, it is no surprise that the Global Commission should have specifically identified the INCB as in need of reform.

Helen Clark’s courageous comments deserve our support, and it is regrettable (though perhaps unsurprising) that her own Secretariat do not feel able to provide theirs.

 Eliot Albers; Exec Dir, INPUD

The links above relate directly to the issues, organisations and publications quoted in the article.

Further loosely related though recent news articles below;

• Is the International Narcotics Control Board Ignoring Human Rights? (intellihub.com)
• United Nations says changing U.S. marijuana laws violate international drug conventions (rawstory.com)

INPUD heads off!….to the UNODC.

A note first from INPUD: Before we get into details of the event, please consider this beautifully succinct insight into where the world stands at this crucial juncture in the never ending war on drugs -and the people who use them. And remember, (lest we forget) the millions of people wrongly punished, tortured, brutalised, criminalised and taken from their families often causing irretrievable damage in the name of ill construed UN conventions, made over 50 years ago at  the height of drug ignorance, based on xenophobia, locked tightly within super-power bullying and bribing tactics…It is this we are trying to unpick today, it is this where ignorance finally, rapidly, won out over evidence.Yet the trenches we have dug are so deep, the bridges so treacherous, the roads ahead so fraught with danger, deceit and precarious cliff edges, none of us – not one – can afford to look the other way anymore -or indeed even the same way that has been benefiting the few at the expense of so, so many. No more must the UN community continue to massage the egos of the powerful as they continue to get away with building their ever deepening pockets of riches for the fewer, bound ever more tightly with lies and ignorance to wrap up their wars, and scapegoat the poor and vulnerable. Ed

Thank you very much to the New York Times for this excellent article, which we have reprinted in its entirety below -including credits and links. This article is By; FERNANDO HENRIQUE CARDOSO and RUTH DREIFUSS

Published: March 10, 2013

Follow link to original piece.

An Ugly Truth in the War on Drugs

This week, representatives from many nations will gather at the annual meeting of the United Nations Commission on Narcotic Drugs in Vienna to determine the appropriate course of the international response to illicit drugs. Delegates will debate multiple resolutions while ignoring a truth that goes to the core of current drug policy: human rights abuses in the war on drugs are widespread and systematic.

Consider these numbers: Hundreds of thousands of people locked in detention centers and subject to violent punishments. Millions imprisoned. Hundreds hanged, shot or beheaded. Tens of thousands killed by government forces and non-state actors. Thousands beaten and abused to extract information, and abused in government or private “treatment” centers. Millions denied life-saving medicines. These are alarming figures, but campaigns to address them have been slow and drug control has received little attention from the mainstream human rights movement.

This is a perfect storm for people who use drugs, especially those experiencing dependency, and those involved in the drug trade, whether growers, couriers or sellers. When people are dehumanized we know from experience that abuses against them are more likely. We know also that those abuses are less likely to be addressed because fewer people care.

The U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime recently described what it saw as the fallout of the war on drugs. A system seems to have been created, the agency said, in which people who use drugs are pushed to the margins of society. What the agency failed to note, and which is clear to those of us involved in harm reduction and drug law reform, is that these people’s human rights have also been marginalized and are too easily ignored.

The U.N.’s International Narcotics Control Board has refused to condemn torture or “any atrocity” carried out in the name of drug control, claiming it was not its mandate to do so. This is both shocking and contradictory: oversight of international drug control treaties is the control board’s very mission.

Late last year, despite the evidence before it, the U.N. Committee against Torture failed to condemn the widespread abuse of people who use drugs in the Russian Federation. In Russia, drug users are routinely cramped into large numbers in one room in woeful conditions, with inadequate food, often tied to beds for periods of up to 24 hours. Those singled out as troublemakers are injected with haloperidol, which causes muscular spasms and spinal pain, and often are tortured and beaten to force confessions. Requests for medical assistance often results in more beatings.

While tolerating such abuses, the Russian government continues, inexcusably, to prohibit the prescription of oral methadone treatment to people who are injecting heroin or other opioids, fueling the H.I.V. epidemic and risks of overdose.

In a report last week to the Human Rights Council, the U.N. Special Rapporteur on Torture condemned abuses against drug users in detention centers across Asia and called for them to be shut down. But far more attention is needed. Just as we now view the war on terror through a human rights lens, we need to see drug control as a human rights concern. We need to acknowledge that not only are human rights abuses in the war on drugs widespread, but that they are systemic. They are an inevitable result of what governments do when they set repressive and unrealistic goals to eliminate supply and demand for widely available commodities and exhibit zero tolerance for human behavior.

A systemic problem demands systemic change.

Recently, a U.N. General Assembly Special Session on Drugs was announced for 2016. It is a chance to look again at the drug control system. This time, human rights must be at the forefront. As we move toward 2016 and this important review, it is time for the human rights movement to take a leading role in calling for an end to the war on drugs and the development of drug policies that advance rather than degrade human rights.

Ruth Dreifuss (1940–), member of the Swiss Federal Council (Photo: Wikipedia)

Fernando Henrique Cardoso, a former president of Brazil, is chairman of the Global Commission on Drug Policy. Ruth Dreifuss, a former president of Switzerland and minister of home affairs, a member of the commission.

For Op-Ed, follow@nytopinion and to hear from the editorial page editor, Andrew Rosenthal, follow@andyrNYT.

Related articles

• UN Report Highlights Abuse as ‘Drug Treatment’ (hrw.org)
• UN: Colorado, Washington Pot Legalization Must Stop (disinfo.com)

 

Women out loud: How women living with HIV will help the world end AIDS

A newly released UNAIDS document. Click here to see the document in its entirety.

This article has been quoted from an interesting UNAIDS document – find the entire UNAIDS article at the link below this.

In a new report, entitled Women_Out_Loud_document UNAIDS explores the impact of HIV on women and the instrumental role women living with the virus are playing to end AIDS. It includes the latest data and commentary from some of the leading advocates on women and HIV.

The report includes the voices of some 30 women living with HIV who have given their personal insights into how the epidemic is affecting women and on how women are actively working to reduce the spread and impact of AIDS.

HIV is continuing to have a disproportionate effect on the lives of women. It is still the leading cause of death for women of reproductive age, and gender inequalities and women’s rights violations are persistent in rendering women and girls more vulnerable to HIV and preventing them from accessing essential HIV services.

“Achieving zero new HIV infections, zero discrimination and zero-AIDS related deaths will require accelerated action for women and girls,” said Michel Sidibé, Executive Director of UNAIDS. “Women must have access to education and knowledge as well as being empowered to protect themselves from HIV. We must listen to their needs, their voices and transform their words into action.”

Every minute, one young woman is infected by HIV

 The infection rates among young women aged 15-24 are twice as high as in young men, highlighting the impact HIV is having on young women’s lives. The disparity is most pronounced in sub-Saharan Africa, where 3% of young women are living with HIV.

Comprehensive sexuality education is critical for all young people to ensure that they can protect themselves from HIV, especially young women. However the percentage of young women who can correctly identify ways of preventing HIV is still very low in many countries with high HIV prevalence.

“Today around 60% of adults living with HIV in the most affected regions are women––we need to take urgent action,” said the Executive Director UN Women Michelle Bachelet. “To make our response more effective, we need more women in decision-making, more access to information and services for sexual and reproductive health, and more focus on promoting and protecting the rights of women and girls.”

Marginalised women remain the most impacted by HIV

Sex workers and people who use drugs are particularly vulnerable to HIV. When sex is exchanged for money or drugs, women often exert little influence over a partner’s condom use. Female sex workers are 13.5 times more likely to be living with HIV than other women. Some countries reported an HIV prevalence rate of more than 20% among female sex workers in capital cities. Studies conducted in nine European Union countries have indicated on average a 50% higher prevalence of HIV among women who inject drugs than in men who inject drugs.

 [This newly released document] ‘Women Out Loud provides an in depth insight into the many challenges faced by women and particularly women living with HIV. It also offers a snapshot of how women are shaping the response to HIV and the importance of their active involvement in decision making and programming

For the rest of this article, click here at UNAIDS website which is FULL of interesting info, stats, evidence, tools, documents, statements, quotes, conventions etc!

 

 

Report from the Source; Find out what INPUD has been doing -in the long but crucial to fight for equality.

So just what have INPUD been doing for this last year. They do manage to keep up quarterly reports the last year but sadly  that has coincided with me taking 8 months out of the year – alas I’m just catching up on things – probably just like you since the blog’s have been far and few between lately! Though, more lately! We are starting up again on the blog so guys and dolls – bear with me!

So, just looking over the ED report August-November_2012 Executive Director, Eliot Albers, I notice it is packed with projects, peer work, lobbying and work , work, work – including a new board (all PUD’s*), just sworn in a few months back – each one will introduce themselves right here my friends, with a piccy so you can see the very person who is the users advocate at these various  international tables. (Of course its only sometimes boardmembers, there are many other INPUD members who do work on a global level too. Like me for example -but it really works because of everyone working from the grassroots – which we ALL do, no matter what posh table we sometimes might sit at, trying to find agreED report August-November_2012ement! (PS – this is edited, but should still give you a good insight into the document. click this link below to read it in its entirety, written by the Chief Exec, Eliot Albers.

Anyway, the document is 10 pages long, to long to print here or for many of us to read on the go – so – Im going to read it for you – provide a brief summery and give you the link to the full document. If you want to know just what INPUD is about, whether you want to be a member, help out, donate, network etc, this will help give some background.

ED report August-November_2012        (follow this previous link for document in full)

 

 

INPUD Executive Director’s Report to the Membership;

Eliot Ross Albers, August  to November 2012

Edited version

That I am now writing this, my fourth, quarterly report indicates the fact that I have completed my first year in this extraordinary job. It has been a collective effort, and the result of  many years of hard work and preparation. We have come from being a dream in the minds of countless  dedicated drug user activists into a project existing month to month, to a fully funded organization with  three staff, members on all continents, and growing regional networks.

We have become an essential partner, and are regarded as the voice of the drug using community in the fields of harm reduction, human rights, HIV, Hepatitis C, drug law reform and more. We are on the brink now of a new phase in our development as we begin the transformation into a legally constituted independent entity – for the  first time ever, our community has earned itself, with considerable struggle, a place at the table, in all fora, where the issues that impact so dramatically on our lives are discussed.

Work has been progressing on three principal levels: 

a) Through representation at a number of international meetings where significant issues impacting on our community’s lives have been discussed, as well as through the writing of two extensive bids for different funding streams; 

b) Through delivering ongoing technical support, most notably to the network that was seeded in Kenya by the workshop that we delivered in June; as well as by the delivery of a capacity building workshop to the Indian Drug Users’ Forum; 

c) Through the development of internal systems and procedures, which was marked most visibly by the preparation of a successful face to face Board meeting in London.

Given the extent of the global financial crisis it should come as no surprise that there have been serious ramifications for the harm reduction, and HIV fields.

The most evident ways in which this impact has manifested itself has been two-fold; the first has been a heated discussion about the adoption of a new ‘Strategic Investment Framework’ (SIF) for the HIV response;

The second has been through the massive restructuring of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (GFATM), and the eventual unveiling of a new funding model.  Both of these new models have elicited widespread discussion, and some considerable concern, amongst HIV activists including key affected population networks. (those affected by such viruses etc ed)

The ‘strategic investment framework’ (SIF) first emerged in a paper in the medical journal The Lancet in June last year, since which time it has sparked a global conversation. Whilst no international agency has yet claimed ownership of the framework, many of its authors work for UN agencies (including UNAIDS,

the Global Fund, WHO and UNICEF) and there are signs that it is beginning to be implemented in a number of African countries.The SIF places great emphasis on what it calls ‘critical enablers’ amongst which community mobilization and human rights are listed. INPUD members from across Asia, as well as Dean (Asia) and Alex (Russia) from the Board, and I (Northern Europe) attended what was billed as a ‘civil society consultation’ on the  strategic investment framework in concentrated epidemics.

NOTE: This is by no means the full picture – many ‘civil society orgs’ – (or in other words groups, charities, orgs, activists who work on the ground empowering/aiding/ the local population and not for ( but hopefully alongside) the governments they work within or deal with, just like INPUD!) -, so many civil society orgs or NGO’s -were very unhappy with the framework suggested – as usual it appeared that the consultation was a consultation ‘after the decisions had been pretty much made -the usual political loopholes we encounter – find out why in Eliots quarterly report. -Erin

 

So who is responsible for implementing the strategic investment framework? Whilst UNAIDS have published a document on it, none of their representatives present clearly stated that the SIF is now UNAIDS policy, the same applies for the Global Fund. So the question remains: who implements the strategic investment framework?

NOTE: More detail in the report.Ed

 The 2nd Major Development to affect INPUD’s work and our community

The second major development has been the massive shake up within the Global Fund to Fight Aids, Tuberculosis and Malaria subsequent to the catastrophic cancellation of Round 11. Since the cancellation a new funding model has been in development and a series of community consultations have been held in which INPUD has participated.

INPUD has, along with our key harm reduction and drug policy partners, been lobbying the Global Fund Secretariat to express our concerns about the multiple ways in which the  restructuring of the fund might negatively impact on its status as the world’s leading funder of harm reduction programs up until now.

In a letter that we co-wrote to the new ED of the Global Fund, we expressed our concern that “one unintended consequence of the changes has been to weaken the Secretariat’s capacity in terms of harm reduction: the internal ‘harm reduction working group’ is no longer functioning, a number of key staff have left the organisation, and the Civil Society Partnerships Team has been disbanded. At this important time for the Global Fund, as it looks to revise and improve its funding mechanisms and operations, we are keen to ensure that full attention is given to the issues of drug injecting, drug policy and harm reduction – reflecting their importance to the global HIV response”. In the letter, that was co-written by us with IDPC, EHRN, HRI, the International HIV/AIDS Alliance, and YouthRise.

NOTE: 4 Specific requests were made – see the quarterly document. Page 4.We have had a response to this letter in which we have been invited to have a meeting with key members of the HIV Committee and are in the process of working on an agenda for the meeting.

One other area of global advocacy in which we have been particularly busy has been around articulating our concerns with developments in UNODC (UN Office of Drugs and Crime) since the Russian Fedotov came in to the role of Executive Director.

Since last December, we, along with key partners, have attempted to engage Fedotov in a discussion to articulate our concerns around the lack of leadership within UNODC on harm reduction, needle and syringe programs and OST (Opiate Substitution Treatment); and the lack of any attempt at systematic engagement with civil society –

notably INPUD.

…..There has been an obvious (Ed)………de-prioritising (of) harm reduction and the scaling up of proven HIV prevention measures such as NSPs and OST. This is most graphically represented by the clear signs that the HIV

unit will be closed when its present head, Christian Kroll, retires at the end of the year, and instead HIV issues will be dealt with by the drug dependence treatment team, or more precisely the ‘Global Challenges Department’, under the leadership of Gilberto Gerra, the latter being entirely committed to a brain disease model of drug use. For UNODC not to have a distinct HIV unit is a potential catastrophe, given  that two out of three new HIV infections outside of sub-Saharan Africa is attributable to the use of

contaminated syringes.This issue will come to a head at next month’s UNAIDS Programme Coordinating Board (PCB)  where it will be raised on the floor.

Whilst all of this advocacy work has been going on, the INPUD Secretariat has devoted a considerable amount of time writing and submitting two different bids for core funding from two different funders. (NOTE: Fingers crossed – more details in the report. Ed)

 

Funding News

NOTE: (While INPUD is still awaiting news from the first bid…ed)

The second bid to be submitted was an application to the Open Society Foundation’s Global Drug Policy Programme. This bid, entitled Sustaining INPUD – Resource Mobilisation, Campaigning Capacity and Secretariat Development was for three core areas of our work:

1. Global Advocacy. The focus of this aspect of the bid was on international advocacy on public health, drug treatment, drug law reform, and human rights.

2. Capacity Development. This proposal will help consolidate our organizational development work by formalising and strengthening alliances with key partners, extending staff and volunteer capacity, and continuing to build communication and campaigning systems.

3. Network Development. This part of the bid is concerned with building INPUD membership and extending the organisation’s operating languages, designing a virtual mechanism for electing and developing a new Board, and moving the organization towards independent incorporation.

I am delighted to be able to announce that this application for funding was successful and so gives us the confidence in knowing that we can continue to do the work that we have been entrusted to do. What most pleased us about the decision was that in addition to the Global Drug Policy Programme, the bid was half funded by the International Harm Reduction Development Programme within OSF. This latter is a new 

funding stream for us and having the support of this programme gives us the ability to develop a drug user oriented approach to harm reduction.

Technical Support – INPUD in Africa! Welcome KeNPUD!

 

Since the delivery of the capacity building workshop in Nairobi to a small group of injecting drug users, INPUD has been providing intensive ongoing technical support to the network, the Kenyan Network of People who Use Drugs (KeNPUD). This technical support has seen the network grow to become one that is now legally registered in Kenya, and has been on technical, political, and personal levels. Whilst the

network is still looking for office space, its energetic membership has been holding regular meetings in a football field, and has become a vital partner in the growing harm reduction, and drug policy debate in the country; as such, it is serving as a pioneer on the continent. INPUD plans to return to Nairobi to carry out further training in the near future, and to help the burgeoning network to clearly identify its advocacy priorities and develop its strategic plan. It is also planned that the network will expand to reach out to the coastal region. In addition to this work in Kenya we have been in discussion with Médecins du Monde in Tanzania, where we also delivered a capacity building workshop earlier in the year, they have invited us to return to deliver more workshops and training, again with a view to forming a network. With

groups established in both Kenya and Tanzania, it is hoped that an East African regional network can be formed.

NOTE: It is worth reading page 7,8 for more information on the African peer work, it’s a really interesting development and good for the people who use drugs – ed

 

Fighting Against Death and Torture

 

As part of the CAHR programme that INPUD is involved in, we have been supporting the Indian Drug Users’ Forum (IDUF) in its development and assisted it in the hiring of a coordinator. To deepen relationships, I was invited to go to Delhi to deliver a capacity building workshop. The event, which was well attended by drug user activists from all over India, as well as activists from Bhutan and Nepal, was a successful galvanizing event. We took the opportunity of the workshop to prioritise the issue of ill

treatment and occasional deaths in unregulated “deaddiction” centres which are rife in India.

The Indian case…..are very different to that in South East Asia, where the systematic use of detention camps, supported by local governments, is well documented (Vietnam, Laos, Thailand and China are notable examples), in that these are not government run but private businesses. They are no less an affront to human dignity and in

breach of all human rights standards. IDUF will keep an eye on the issue and see what it can do to see that such facilities are shut down.

Internal Systems

 

Two of INPUD’s key objectives for the year came together in November when we

1) held a face to face  Board meeting in London;

 2) finalized agreement on the way forward to taking INPUD further along the  road to independence as a legally registered entity. The Board meeting was an enormous logistical task,  - bringing together 10 people from 7 different countries. The meeting achieved all that it set out to do… One of the most important outcomes of the meeting was that the Board approved of the work that I had been doing to prepare us for incorporation as a legal entity in the UK….. as all three staff members are based here, and we have been advised that the process would be relatively easy to accomplish; we have hired legal and financial experts to guide us through the process of incorporation

and hope to have it completed shortly after the new year.

It will be an extremely exciting development for us as a network, as for the first time we will have a legally independent international drug users’ network, funded and staffed, and totally dedicated to our common objectives and values.

A great deal of work has been ongoing to establish internal working methods, project management systems, and better contact databases, as well as to develop a new user friendly website so that we can improve communication with members, partner organizations, and the wider world; the new website will not just be more visually attractive but will include an array of interactive features so that INPUD can act as a clearing house for information from the world of drug user activism.

INPUD members have been active at the Harm Reduction Coalition’s recent conference in Portland, Oregon, including at the pre-conference meeting of drug user unions; at the October summit of African leaders where drug policy and harm reduction were on the agenda; we have also been involved, and participated, in a GNP+ consultation on the implementation of their Global Advocacy Agenda, other members are currently taking part in a consultation for Key Populations living with HIV that GNP+ is in

Cape Town.

 

Following the successful launch at the Kolkata Sex Worker Freedom Festival of WHO

Guidance on Prevention of Viral Hepatitis B and C Among People who Use Drugs, INPUD has been invited to send a member to sit on a new WHO Guideline Development Group to develop WHO Standard Guidelines for Screening, Care and Treatment of Chronic Hepatitis C Virus (HCV); WHO have also invited us to send a representative to the first meeting of a project to develop guidelines on substance use in pregnancy.

In my last report I mentioned that we had produced information in response to the

reappearance on the market of anthrax-contaminated heroin; subsequent to the publication of our booklet and materials, further deaths have occurred and new information has come to light, as a consequence we felt it to be our duty to issue an augmented information pack, this is now available online and we encourage members to disseminate it in their networks as widely as possible.

One of the highlights of the last few months was the founding conference,

in Salvador, Brazil of our Latin American network, the Latin American Network of People who Use Drugs (LANPUD). Latin America continues to be one of the principal battle grounds of the war on drug users, and its ravages are apparent in the many thousands killed in Mexico and across the continent in battles between governments and traffickers. At the same time, a growing number of serving Latin American heads of state are speaking out more and more stridently against the ‘war’ and are calling for

fundamental reform.

As usual, I am sure that I have left a lot out, but I hope that this gives you an overview of the work that we have been doing, and inspires you to stay involved in, and become more active in your network. We will only grow stronger if we, as the staff team, know what you are doing in your countries and regions, at the same time I will continue to provide you with regular updates on the progress that we are collectively

making.

Do try and read the quarterly report, there is so much going on and if any particular part interests you and your user organisation, let us know and we can do an interview of investigation/report for the blog or elsewhere. Erin

 

Here is the link to the Quarterly INPUD report from Aug – Nov 2012

So just how do you get you methadone in a hurricane??

OK – thought this might be interesting – for those of us who have wonderede – and i bet a lot of opiate users have – just what the goddamn would happen to us if there was a hurricane or earthquake? I mean methadone or some kind of opiate isnt really the most important thing in the world, but then again, in a way, it kinda can be and to think of the days when your in the thick of it – or just have been on a ‘script for years and years. And then one freakishly windy or cold day – you cant get there. or its closed – or its UNDERWATER!!!!....Ignore the title of this newsletter Alcoholism and Drug Abuse Weekly’ – but it poses some interesting dilemas facing the methadone clinics and ensureing we are not left pulling our hair out!

Hurricane Sandy and daily doses of  methadone:

Challenges for N.Y. and N.J.

On Monday, October 29, as a killer hurricane swooped down on the shores of New Jersey and New York,

methadone patients worried about how to get their daily doses and opioid treatment programs (OTPs) worried about security and patient safety.

Those hardest hit — in Asbury Park, N.J., for example, where Ed Higgins’  legendary JSAS Healthcare was still without power a week later — had to  rely on the emergency take-homes.

And in New York City, treatment advocate Walter Ginter told ADAW that some OTPs did not manage to get those take-homes to patients, some of whom relapsed to heroin use.

Both states had advised OTPs  the Friday before the storm that they could use their emergency authority to give out take-homes. Under the  federal regulations, the OTP medical director has the discretion to approve take-homes.

On October 26, the New York Office of Alcoholism and Substance Abuse Services (OASAS) “sent an email to all OTPs potentially targeted by the storm to adhere to the OASAS Emergency Guidelines and to seek to prepare for any and all  contingencies,” OASAS spokeswoman Jannette Rondo told  ADAW.

These guidelines provide information to help OTPs in emergencies

such as transit strikes, crippling  weather conditions or unforeseen disasters, she said. “The main goal of OTPs in an emergency is to assure  that all patients receive methadone  or buprenorphine,” she said. “Emergency disaster plans automatically become effective in an emergency,  even without notice from OASAS.”

Jude Iheoma, Ph.D., State Opioid Treatment Authority with the Division of Mental Health and Addiction.

tion Services for New Jersey, told ADAW that he was in the process of preparing a report for Assistant Commissioner Lynn Kovich on the state’s implementation of its OTP disaster plan. “We are still being bombarded by the aftermath of Sandy and now the Nor’easter,” Iheoma told ADAW November 7, when a snowstorm accompanied by heavy winds was hitting the same areas as Sandy. Kovich had to approve the report before he could share it with us. Guest dosing The federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), which regulates OTPs at the federal level, has been working on ways to make sure patients do not miss methadone doses since before September 11, 2001. Even before 9/11, a blackout in New York City caused serious problems for patients, and during that time patients were told that they could go to any OTP in the city and tell the program their dose level as part of a “guest-dosing” policy, recalled Nicholas Reuter, senior public health analyst with SAMHSA’s Center for Substance Abuse Treatment (CSAT). “It was the honor system,” he said. Patients could self-report their dose level, but they were told that the guest-dosing program would follow sandy from page 1 up with their home OTP. This worked, said Reuter. “Patients were honest” (Well suprise suprise – ed)

For the rest of the article and newsletter contents click here: 

Anthrax Re-appearing in European Street Heroin

HI,

INPUD’s guide on anthrax

Just wanting to connect you with a serious issue that has been slowly but surely emerging in Europe amongst street heroin users. INPUD has put an excellent booklet together, below is a slightly edited introduction and then the link to the doc itself. If you have the opportunity to spread it further across the drug using community, please do. It is an extremely important guide to read -it is only a few pages and it could save a life. Please, take a minute to have a look, anthrax infections can be fatal and can certainly be very damaging to your health. Below is the direct link to the PDF, underneath is a bit of background on the issue.

INPUD’s Latest Guide to ANTHRAX for Heroin Users

NOTE: This affects intravenous, heroin users, intramuscular or under the skin heroin users, and heroin smokers and even those who swallow it or smuggle internally!

Anthrax Warning for Heroin Users; You Could Be at Risk!

“…Background…On the 17th June 2012, a heroin injector presented to a Berlin Hospital with symptoms of cutaneous anthrax i.e. infection at the injection site. Symptoms were black eschar (black dry scab), massive swelling, erythema (redness) and thrombosis.

Diagnosis was confirmed at the Robert Koch Institute by PCR, and serology showed that this was an anthrax infection due to the injection of an anthrax-contaminated batch of heroin.

Subsequent to the crisis in Scotland during 2009/10, where an outbreak of anthrax infected 47 people, causing 14 fatalities; further cases and deaths have been reported this year in Germany, Denmark, and France. Scotland has again been affected, with a confirmed case in Lanarkshire on 24th July this year. Although at the time of this publication, no further cases have been reported on the European mainland, anthrax infection continues to infect, hospitalise, and kill heroin users throughout the UK.

Research published subsequent to the 2009/10 outbreak has produced no evidence of nefarious intent, with the heroin likely being contaminated by the use of bone-meal based cutting agents, or contact with animal hides whilst in Turkey, during transit from the Afghan source. (1)

The spores found in the heroin responsible for the recent cases in Germany were shown to be indistinguishable from those found in the 2009/10 cases in Scotland. This suggests that the same batch of heroin could be responsible………..

………..This brings the number of anthrax cases reported in the EU since June 2012 to 12: four in Germany; two in Denmark; one in France; and five in the UK – one in Scotland, one in Wales and three in England (two fatal, one recovering)….”

  ___________

For the rest of this well researched guide for further information, just click the link INPUD’s Guide to ANTHRAX for Heroin Users

Just about everything you need to know right now about anthrax is in this guide.

Topics include;

What is anthrax?

Routes of Infection

Smuggling heroin

Can you identify it?

Can you filter out the anthrax spores?

White Vs Brown (heroin)

Signs and Symptoms

What to look out for.

Advanced Infections

Treatment

Risks to Family and Friends?

Useful links – and more. Including some very unpleasant (though real) pictures

INPUD’s guide on anthrax

Please copy widely and freely, just be sure to credit INPUD please! Its a copyright of INPUD.

NOTE: Anyone who has a proven case of anthrax in any country, please dont forget (if you or a friend is able) to let your local large drug service or drug user group know about it (so we can share information, anonymous is fine of course). It is essential these episodes are recorded -and sometimes, as we well know, we have to do it ourselves to make sure its done.  It wouldn’t be impossible for some medics to treat what might be a milder or even fatal case and not identify it or record it properly etc, and just write it off quickly as a drug overdose. It is possible there could be more anthrax cases globally me-thinks.

Drug User Activism and Organising, Nordic Style

Hello fellow drug enthusiasts, here is something you might find interesting!

Ever wondered what drug user organisations actually do? I mean it might seem obvious to some, but to those outside the drugs field (or even some people within it!) it can be quite perplexing. Sitting outside of the traditional NA/AA self help and support groups the last three decades have seen the evolution of the ‘drug user activist’ – people who use/d drugs who politicize, lobby, advocate, agitate, network across the world and yes, help and support as well.  And when I say ‘people who use drugs’ I mean the ‘hardcore’ of the drug scene. Those who were directly affected by the various systems of control and management we have today for the ‘drug user’. Now this could be a whole book in itself but suffice to say, the people rose up.

The rose up for each other, the rose up for themselves, they rose up for their communities and the next generation. And in case one may think that the long term heroin injector that has been through it all could never get it together enough to ‘rise up’ and get political-you are going to be in for a shock when you read the history of the drug user movement. It’s central players have always been the injector. Familiar with at least one dependence (we dont say addict anymore, dependence describes the situation accurately, without the psychiatric baggage and labelling that comes with the word ‘addict’), those agitating for the health and welfare of the drug using community have indeed been through the mill -they know intimately what the issues are -and that is precisely why they fought back. The leaders of our movement, across the world, have experienced the humiliation, degradation and powerless environs of treatment centres, detox’s and rehabs and the often hideous drug ‘group therapy’, fought with and clung desperately to friends and loved ones who couldn’t understand their lives or their choices, and suffered abuse from the powerful; the prison officers, the cops, the social workers, the pimps as well as the brutes and bigots who think junkies are people to be isolated, incarcerated or spat at in the street.

So, from the beginnings of drug user organising which appeared to begin in the Netherlands, during the late 1970′s where a large community of heroin injectors were succumbing to a horrendous outbreak of hepatitis B, the first organised drug user response rose up. Blood to blood transmission was at the heart of the issue, sterile syringes given out to everyone who needed them were the solution. Waiting for the government to act is just too slow when people are dying in front of your eyes and so, not for the last time, junkies took matters into their own hands, acquiring the sterile equipment and distributing it where it was needed. The first needle exchange would emerge from this scene, and the seeds of drug user activism was sown. We (peers) took matters into our own hands to save lives and in doing so found a powerful voice, our own voice, a voice that was essential to the drug debate, a voice that had been missing for decades.  Harm reduction was born on the back of this event and would soon coincide with the urgent need which swept across many cities of the world as the HIV epidemic continued to claim more lives of injecting drug users (amongst the many, many other millions to dies of AIDS over the 1980′s and 90′s.)

These people, our user activists, were at the front end of a viral hell -the hepatitis B epidemic in the late 1970′s in Amsterdam, to HIV during the 1980s, ’90s and onwards, and now Hepatitis C.

The activist from ‘our movement’ – which is your ‘movement’ didn’t give up when they hit a brick wall or achieved the first goal. Many bit the bullet fighting judgement, discrimination, fear and suspicion as they went -supported by some wonderful allies, in all fields of work, from the grassroots to the highest levels, and these individuals have gone on not only to start their own local, national, regional groups and networks, but have come together to formulate INPUD -an organisation to represent drug users at the highest levels. So next time you wonder who are these people, please remember, they are people like you. The person in the street, the person who has experienced today’s drug dependence.

But anyway, until I post a potted history of the drug user movement on this site -which I most certainly will (Jude Byrne from INPUD has written a brilliant one Ill get my hands on for you), Ill keep adding a few bits and pieces. This is one. This is a really well researched article on drug user organising and activism in the Nordic countries; Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Iceland and Finland. Ive just returned from visiting The Swedish Drug Users Union who are a truly inspirational organisation run by Berne Stålenkrantz Ill be writing up a piece on them in the next few days.

Until then, please do peruse this interesting document, (34pages) about user organising in the Nordic countries.

See the text below and follow the link to have a read of the document. A scene of some of the best drug user organising in Europe, if not the world, it provides a great insight into our Nordic comrades as they fight to good fight.

(PUD is the new acronym friends, now recognised instead of ‘drug user’ at the United Nations. Thanks to our peers who pushed for that change! Person Using Drugs, or Person who uses Drugs = PUD, unfortunate acronym in a way but it is the terminology that is important to change. It doesnt mean we cant use drug user anymore, I use it all the time, it just means we are directing people to use less demeaning language, as drug user is often associated with. PWID is also a new one on the scene, instead of IVDU (Intravenous Drug User) we now have Person Who Injects Drugs. More dignified and without the baggage, don’t you think? Language can be as restrictive and damaging as it can be liberating and the drugs field is rife with words that come with old baggage and it needs to be updated Note: see INPUD position statements for the one on ‘Terminology’.)

Swedish Drug Users Union Hep C campaign

Drug User Organizations in the Nordic Countries – Local, National and International Dimensions.  Written by Vibeke Asmussen Frank, Jørgen Anker and Tuukka Tammi  Click here for the doc  This fascinating document (34 pages) is essential reading for anyone interested in the development of drug user self organising in the Nordic countries. Despite the regional closeness, each country (and their respective drug user organisation) faces its own unique concerns regarding drugs and this well researched paper shines a spotlight on the people who it may be said understand it the best -the drug using community itself.  The text follows “the opportunities and challenges that these organizations face in their search for legitimacy and political influence”.  It also draws together the “similarities and differences in national contexts that both support and challenge the existence of drug user organizations, including drug policy, social welfare policy, trends in drug use, and organizational conditions organizations.” Well worth a read if your interested in the past and present of drug user organising, if only because the region houses amongst the best examples of drug user organising in Europe if not the world.

Andrea Diefenbach: AIDS in Odessa

A short film looking at HIV/AIDS in Odessa. I like this film because it shows in a very straightforward way, the people behind the statistics we so often read about. Done through photography, it gives us a glimpse into the years people live through with HIV as it turns to AIDS, as they battle to get access to treatments that will keep them alive, often fighting Tuberculosis and other viruses as well. It is extremely moving, a big story told through small pictures, please spend 5 minutes to have a look…

Andrea Diefenbach: AIDS in Odessa, posted with vodpod

CND 2012 – So much Agony, So Little Ecstasy

Here is a really good article by Joanne Csete at Open Society Foundation which speaks about the recent goings on at the Commission for Narcotic Drugs (CND) and the UNODC (United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime). For this is where all the head honchos of the drug enforcement world come together to talk about drugs, the law, and working together to eliminate drug production, trafficking, and use. They pledge millions, spend questionably, and talk prohibitionist politics unendingly. However, INPUD was there, giving it some for the people who use drugs in the world -especially those who are being victimised, incarcerated -often without trial, and brutalised – only because they use drugs.  Anyway, Here is a neat summery of the recent procedings in March 2012, by Joanne Csetes, thanks Joanne.

Commission on Narcotic Drugs -So much Agony, So Little Ecstasy

It is a lesson of history that at the end of established regimes, those left in power ratchet up the repression of dissent in their desperate bid to retain power. This phenomenon could be what we’re seeing at the UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs (CND), which met this March in Vienna. Or maybe it’s just that voices challenging the status quo bring out the worst in this particular UN body.

CND is the global drug policy-setting body of the United Nations. International drug policy is fraught with difficult issues that should be deliberated among sovereign states. But CND has long been a place where real deliberation and debate can almost never happen, partly because it works on what is euphemistically called a “consensus” system, which in this case means that any one country can kill a resolution or stop debate. The result is that debate on hard issues is rare, and resolutions of the CND by definition represent “least common denominator” positions on issues that deserve better.

The March 2012 session of the CND was seen by many of the NGOs and others present as showing more cracks in the armour of the prohibitionist status quo than ever before. In some ways this is true. After all, The Czech Republic said in plenary, in essence, that it’s time to throw out the dominant prohibitionist strategies and recognize them for the failure they are. Several Latin American countries said repeatedly that prohibitionism starts out being wrong because it neglects poverty as the root of drug use and ends up wrong because it tramples human rights. Even the International Federation of the Red Cross called for decriminalization of minor drug crimes and denounced the futile pursuit of a “drug-free” society that remains CND’s official strategy.

But these statements pass like mist because CND will not debate them. And civil society, which in most sessions is relegated to a statement or two after the member states have spoken, is especially marginalized in its proceedings. NGO statements this year were vetted by the CND Secretariat—that is, staff of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime—and anything that criticized in any way the positions of the Executive Director of UNODC, whose report to the CND is a big part of the proceedings, was ruled out of bounds. When NGOs complained of censorship, the CND chair said that member states were also asked to submit their statements for vetting ahead of time, but a quick informal survey of country delegates confirmed that this is not so. To add insult to injury, a senior UNODC staff member and the head of INCB lectured NGOs for their behavior, as though having dissenting views is impolite, rather than being the lifeblood of deliberative bodies.

The air of repression remains heavy around the International Narcotics Control Board, whose chairman, Dr. Hamid Ghodse, made statements during CND that represent a new low for this secretive body. Dr. Ghodse clung to the position that the UN drug conventions oblige INCB to be “neutral” when it comes to condemning even the most horrific human rights abuses committed in the name of drug control, including applying the death penalty for drug crimes. But the INCB in its reports is not neutral because it often publicly congratulates countries for repressive policing and even such practices as compulsory drug treatment, which the rest of the UN has now condemned. When an NGO representative suggested, respectfully, that the INCB is legally ill-advised in its interpretation of the conventions and human rights obligations, Dr Ghodse again felt compelled to lecture NGOs about polite behavior.

How long will the INCB and the CND Secretariat be able to dismiss civil society in this way? How long until real debate happens in this global drug policymaking body? How long will it be before the participation of civil society, especially including people who use drugs (continually referred to as “abusers” by INCB), is understood to be essential to moving toward the humane evidence-based, rights-based drug policy that even the most repressive states now routinely refer to in their public statements at CND?

The rhetoric may be improving, but there is a long way to go until the agony of repression in CND and the INCB is lifted. Member states have to be the engine for this change. Civil society—working not for one week in Vienna but for the whole year with national drug authorities—will be needed to ignite that engine.

By Joanne Csete at Open Society Foundation (A particularly good website, worth checking out. Here’s a word about their blog;  Open Society Foundations work to improve the lives of the world’s most vulnerable people and to promote human rights, justice, and accountability. [This blog] aims to bring that work a little closer by giving our experts and grantees a platform to reflect on their issues, sharpen their thinking, and engage in a conversation on how to advance open society values around the globe.

The Disproved Accusations of the Russian Drug Czar

Here’s an interesting video from the folks at HCLU. Reporting on the recent decision by Russia’s Federal Drug Control Service to force the shut down of human rights /harm reduction organisation ARF, HCLU managed to get a few questions to the dude causing all the trouble, Viktor Ivanov, head of the FDCS. Shockingly he lies straight to camera and accuses ARF of selling methadone on their website. ARF have decided to sue for defamation. Great stuff -but we feel deeply for the stress and pain our Russian friends are experiencing and sincerely hope the people of their country get a break soon.

HCLU writes…”We attended a press conference of the Russian delegation to the Commission on Narcotic Drugs (CND), an annual UN meeting in Vienna, where we asked the Russian drug czar, Mr. Viktor Ivanov, why his Federal Drug Control Service decided to close down the website of the Andrey Rylkov Foundation, an NGO operating the first and only needle and syringe distribution program in Moscow. We promised you to produce a movie about the press conference in which we ask experts to comment Ivanov’s words. Here you go!”

The Disproved Accusations of the Russian Drug Czar.