Because we are at a critical juncture

Posted in: Blog
on July 17, 2010
» Tags: AIDS 2010, BC Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS, Harm Reduction, Heroin, HIV, Human Rights Abuses, International AIDS Society, Law Enforcement, Opiod Substitution Therapy, War on Drugs
» Comments Off on Because we are at a critical juncture

Dr. Julio Montaner | Immediate Past President, International AIDS Society; Director, BC Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS

I support the Vienna Declaration because we, as a global society, are at a critical juncture with respect to our efforts to control the spread of HIV among injection drug users, and we must not let it pass us by.

Thanks to a critical mass of scientific evidence we know with certainty we can halt the spread of HIV in this population simply through providing HIV treatment, clean needles and evidence-based addiction treatments like opioid substitution therapy, supervised injection sites and medicalized heroin.

Remarkably, there is also a critical mass of scientific evidence regarding the unintended negative consequences of policies based exclusively on drug law enforcement. We have to recognize that the war on drugs has not only failed to reduce illicit drug supply and use, but it has also resulted in a range of human rights violations, drug market violence and HIV and HCV epidemics among users.

That being said, this wealth of evidence we have generated over the last couple of decades are being systematically neglected and ignored in favor of a highly prevalent ideologically driven war on drugs.

It’s high time for policy and decision-makers to admit that law enforcement based attempts to address illicit drug use are causing more harm than good. Fortunately, there is enough evidence in the existing literature to guide new and promising policy decisions. It is my hope that AIDS 2010, and the success of the Vienna Declaration, will lead to a recognition by policy makers that we must guide our response to HIV and drug use by evidence rather than ideology.

Please join me in endorsing the Vienna Declaration and take this opportunity to push for evidence based drug policy reform so that we can help turn the tide on HIV infection among people who inject drugs.

Julio Montaner, MD, is the Director of the BC Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS and Immediate Past President of the International AIDS Society.