The United Nations and Harm Reduction Overview and Links

TNI
November 2005

TNI and official links on UN and Harm Reduction

 

Recent statements and press coverage

Wim Bossema Schone naalden voor spuiters
Het debat in: de Verenigde Naties
Volkskrant, 19 March 2005

US Ideologues Put Millions at Risk International Herald Tribune, 5 March 2005, by Aryeh Neier

US Gag on Needle Exchange Harms UN AIDS Efforts. Before UN Narcotics Meeting, Groups in 56 Countries Assail US Tactics Press release by Human Rights Watch, Open Society Institute and The Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network, New York, 3 March 2005

An Open Letter to the delegates of the Forty-eighth session of the Commission on Narcotic Drugs (CND) [PDF document] signed by 334 organizations (including TNI) and individuals in 56 countries 1 March 2005
"In a year when the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) is chair of the governing body of the UN's Joint Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), we write to express concern about U.S. efforts to force a UNODC retreat from support of syringe exchange and other measures proven to contain the spread of HIV among drug users. [..] 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 Open Letter is also available in Spanish, French and Russian.

An Overdose of Morality. American Strong-arm Tactics Threaten to Scupper Successful UN Harm Reduction Drug Programmes The Guardian, 3 March 2005, by Mike Trace and Ruth Runciman

Foreign AIDS, America's Overseas Social Engineering Reason Online, 2 March 2005, by Kerry Howley

HIV/AIDS at the 48th UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs (CND) A Human Rights Watch Brief, February/March 2005 [PDF document]

Reason and Rights in Global Drug Control Policy Commentary, Canadian Medical Association Journal, 1 March 2005
The Journal also devoted its editorial to HIV, harm reduction and human rights.

Deadly Ignorance Editorial, The Washington Post, 27 February 2005

Ideology and AIDS The New York Times, 26 February 2005

Losing Tolerance with Zero Tolerance Editorial, The Lancet, 19 February 2005

Harm Reduction or Harm Maintenance. Is There Such a Thing as Safe Drug Abuse? Human Rights Watch, 15 February 2005

US Cash Threat to Aids War The Observer, 6 February 2005, by Martin Bright


TNI on Harm Reduction


Related websites and documents