HIV/AIDS MAY BE FUELED BY WAR ON DRUGS

29.06.2010 [17:12]
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Baku, June 29 (AZERTAC). The fight against HIV/AIDS may have a better chance of success if the war against drugs were waged differently, VOA reports.

That`s according to an official document released Monday, prior to next month`s 18th International AIDS Conference in Vienna.

The Vienna Declaration calls for a scientific approach to illicit drug use and questions the effectiveness of the criminalization of injection drug users. The document, written by medical and academic professionals, does not criticize law enforcement personnel, but rather the policies they carry out. It says those policies are helping to spread HIV/AIDS.

Dr. Evan Wood is chair of the Vienna Declaration Writing Committee and director of the Urban Health Research Initiative at the British Columbia Center for Excellence in HIV/AIDS in Vancouver, Canada.

“The Vienna Declaration is basically a scientific statement from the scientific community about the harms of illegal drugs in our society, and drawing important attention to the fact that many of the policies, which are in place around the world - this notion of sort of a war on drugs and this over emphasis on law enforcement does more harm than good,” he says.

Locking up drug users is a failed strategy, says the declaration.

“The war on drugs has failed to achieve its stated objectives in terms of reducing drug supply or use. And on the contrary, if you look at all the international surveillance systems, the prices of drugs continue to go down; and the purity of drugs continues to go up. And that`s despite ever increasing numbers of individuals that we`re locking up.” says Wood.

What`s more, he says, incarcerating all those arrested on drug use charges is “hemorrhaging taxpayers` dollars.”

HIV/AIDS MAY BE FUELED BY WAR ON DRUGS

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