The United Nations and Harm Reduction Overview and Links

TNI

Noviembre 2005

UN Drug control system

TNI and official links on UN and Harm Reduction

Recent statements and press coverage
TNI on harm reduction
Related websites and documents

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

The United Nations and Harm Reduction - Revisited. An Unauthorised Report on the Outcomes of the 48th CND Session TNI Drug Policy Briefing 13, April 2005
In this briefing the Transnational Institute (TNI) analyses the proceedings and results of the CND meeting in Vienna, 7-11 March 2005, outlines several options for follow-up and recommends next steps to take
The United Nations and Harm Reduction TNI Drug Policy Briefing 12, March 2005
Martin Jelsma and Pien Metaal Cracks in the Vienna Consensus. The UN Drug Control Debate Drug War Monitor, Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA), January 2004
Harm Reduction for Poppy Farmers in Myanmar? Asian Harm Reduction Network (AHRN) Newsletter Issue 34, April 2004. Report by Jean-Paul Grund on the international conference "Drugs and Conflict in Burma (Myanmar): Dilemmas for Policy Responses", organised by TNI and Burma Centre Netherlands (BCN), Amsterdam, 14-15 December 2003
Martin Jelsma Drugs in the UN System. The Unwritten History of the 1998 United Nations General Assembly Special Session on Drugs Special issue on the UNGASS Mid-term Review of the International Journal of Drug Policy, Vol. 14, No. 2, April 2003
Change of Course. An Agenda for Vienna Drugs & Conflict Debate Paper 6, March 2003
Martin Jelsma Diverging Trends in International Drug Policy Making. The Polarisation between Dogmatic and Pragmatic Approaches presented at the 2nd European Conference on Drug Trafficking and Law Enforcement, Paris, 26 September 2002
Breaking the Impasse. Polarisation & Paralysis in UN Drug Control, Drugs & Conflict Debate Paper 5, July 2002
Martin Jelsma Revising and Integrating Drug Policies at National and International Level. How Can Reform Be Achieved? presented at the Wilton Park Conference on Drug Policies and their Impact, 27 March 2002
Ricardo Vargas Meza La Reducción del daño desde la perspectiva de la producción [PDF document] TNI/Acción Andina Colombia, International Conference on the Reduction of Drug Related Harm, Geneva 21-25 March 1999 [only in Spanish]