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March 13, 2009

US Opposes Harm Reduction at UN Drug Talks
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In Vienna, UN talks over a new global strategy to combat illegal drugs
have ended in a gridlock between the US and several other nations. The
US led opposition to inclusion of “harm reduction” in the final document
for the UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs. Several countries say they’ll
interpret the document to condone harm reduction anyway. Harm reduction
measures include methadone clinics and needle exchange programs for
heroin users. On Thursday, UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs head Antonio
Maria Costa said anti-drug programs must approach addiction through a
range of social and medical factors.

Antonio Maria Costa: “What do we have in mind for health? Well,
certainly we have in mind recognizing—and member states are doing so,
growingly, but not all yet—that a drug addiction is a health condition,
is a vulnerable condition, is physical, is psychological, is emotional,
perhaps is contextual—low income, being at the margin of society, family
conditions. It has to be dealt with as an illness, and therefore it has
to be dealt with by doctors and not by policemen.”

The US has been widely criticized for its longtime resistance to
decriminalization and treatment-based alternatives.



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