INPUD: International drugs users' day 2018

CC Geralt

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INPUD: International drugs users' day 2018

8 November 2018

The world over, communities of people who use drugs experience endemic violence, abuse, stigmatisation, and discrimination. In the last year alone, tens of thousands of people who use drugs have died as a result of prohibition, as a result of criminalisation, and as a result of the social exclusion they suffer for nothing more than their status as drug users. All over the world, people who use drugs are incarcerated and imprisoned; they are incarcerated without due legal process in forced labour camps; they are tortured and executed; they are denied access to healthcare, service provision, and harm reduction; they are harassed and assaulted by the police. This is a time of humanitarian calamities for our communities. Huge numbers of people continue to die from avoidable opiate overdose as a result of using heroin that is contaminated or of unknown purity and strength, due to the unregulated black-market of prohibition. Overdose mortalities are rising exponentially globally. Overdose deaths are now the most prevalent cause of death of under 50s in the USA. Further to this tragic and unnecessary loss of life are the tens of thousands of drug users murdered in state-endorsed killings. Tens of thousands have been killed by the police in numerous contexts in only the last year.