Conflicting view on Harm Reduction in UN become major concern

From 7-14 March the UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs (CND) will meet in Vienna. The confrontation between zero-tolerance ideologues and harm reduction pragmatists will be fiercer than ever before.

Conflicting views within the UN system on harm reduction have become a major concern. Consistency in messages is crucial especially where it concerns joint global programmes such as the efforts to slow down the HIV/AIDS epidemic. In those efforts harm reduction practices like needle exchange and substitution treatment play a pivotal role. Existing tensions reached a new peak after a meeting between the Executive Director of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), Antonio Maria Costa, and US Assistant Secretary of State for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (INL), Robert Charles, on November 10, 2004. The US government threatened to cut funding to UNODC unless Mr Costa assured that UNODC would abstain from any support for harm reduction, including needle exchange programmes.

In a mea culpa response, Mr Costa ensured that references to harm reduction and needle/syringe exchange would be avoided in UNODC statements. This position is in direct conflict with statements made by other UN agencies and in UNODC documents in the recent past. More than ever, inconsistency reigns within the UN around an issue all UN Member States have pledged to achieve in the Millennium Development Goals: Halt and begin to reverse the spread of HIV/AIDS.

A key moment will be the 48th session of the Commission on Narcotic Drugs (CND) in Vienna, the principal drug policy-making body within the UN system. In the run-up to the CND (7-14 March 2005) many statements were made expressing concern about US efforts to force a UN retreat from support of harm reduction measures proven to contain the spread of HIV. The New York Times urged the US government to "call off their budding witch hunt" and the Washington Post "to end this bullying flat-earthism."

In an open letter released on March 1, over 200 organizations -including TNI- and many individuals in 56 countries made an urgent appeal to CND delegates: "As you gather this year to debate HIV/AIDS prevention and drug abuse, we respectfully urge you to support syringe exchange, opiate substitution treatment and other harm reduction approaches demonstrated to reduce HIV risk; to affirm the human rights of drug users to health and health services; and to reject efforts to overrule science and tie the hands of those working on the front lines. No less than the future of the HIV epidemic is at stake."

The Transnational Institute releases today a Drug Policy Briefing explaining the background to this new crisis in UN-US relations: The United Nations and Harm Reduction and offers a special web section with links to relevant documents, statements and press coverage.

Policy Recommendations

Governments have to stand up to defend harm reduction practices or the few good lessons learned in drug policy making and methods proven to contain the spread of HIV/AIDS might be in danger.

Countries with long-standing experience with harm reduction practices and less vulnerable to US pressures - Europe, Canada and Australia - have a particular responsibility. The price for avoiding confrontation will be paid in Asia, Latin America and the former Soviet Union.

Tensions in US-UNODC relations should be resolved by more sustainable funding mechanisms, not by bowing to Republican flat-earthism. It is time to be guided by the light of science, not by the darkness of ignorance and fear.

Contact Martin Jelsma, TNI's drugs programme coordinator:
email mjelsma@tni.org
Martin Jelsma will be at the CND meeting in Vienna from March 7-11, but can be contacted via mobile and email.

Contact Tom Blickman at the TNI office in Amsterdam:
+31-20-662 6608, email tblick@tni.org