ANPUD is an issues based membership network that aims to ensure the meaningful involvement of people who use drugs in policies and programmes that affect them.

ANPUD es una red de organizaciones centradas en temas comunes, la cual se propone garantizar una participación significativa de las personas que consumen drogas en políticas y programas que les afectan.

ANPUD est un réseau de plusieurs organisations qui tentent d’assurer la participation des usagers de drogue lors de l’élaboration et de la mise en œuvre des politiques qui les concernent.

Asian Network of People who Use Drugs (ANPUD) 

Key populations and their sexual partners have higher HIV prevalence than the general population and 62% of global new HIV infections are amongst this group. UN agencies including UNAIDS, WHO, UNODC, UNDP, as well as the Global Fund, PEPFAR, bilateral donors and private foundations, such as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation recognize that effective and evidence-based HIV response must focus on key populations who are most vulnerable to HIV transmission. For example, in Pakistan, there is an estimated 37,173 – 111,330 number of people who inject drugs, with a HIV prevalence rate of 38.4%, a mere 4.3% of which are virally suppressed, and low HIV prevention coverage of 29%. In Ukraine, there are an estimated 319,500 people who inject drugs with a 19.1% - 22.6% HIV prevalence rate. In Nigeria, the number of people who inject drugs is estimated at 80,000, with 9.2% HIV prevalence rate.

People who use drugs are a population group disproportionately vulnerable to HIV and AIDS, and are often left out of HIV prevention and treatment services. Criminalisation, stigma and discrimination, including within health care settings, are some of the main barriers they face when accessing services. Accordingly, decriminalisation should be a core component of public health and HIV prevention responses. Moreover, policy makers often make political and moral judgements about who to prioritise in programmes. People who use drugs bear the brunt of these types of decision-making.

Imprisonment, arbitrary detention and compulsory forced rehabilitation is a reality for many people who inject drugs. UNAIDS estimates that 56-90% of people who inject drugs will be incarcerated at some stage during their life. Therefore, it is essential to promote harm reduction and provide services in closed settings as well as in the community.

Harm reduction interventions are evidence-based and have a proven record of effectiveness and cost-effectiveness in the fight against HIV. Additional benefits include a reduction in criminal activity related to the need to access drugs, and individual, family and community social and health benefits. The unit costs of harm reduction interventions are relatively low, making it good value for money at $100 - $1000 per HIV infection averted.

From Invisibility to Influence: The evolution of participation of people who use drugs in the Global Fund

By Annie Madden, Kari Lancaster, Alison Ritter, and Carla Treloar - International Journal of Drug Policy

The familiar mantra of ‘Nothing About Us Without Us’ has arguably become a well-accepted principle within drug policy development (Jürgens, 2005; Sharma & Chatterjee, 2012). The criminalisation of drug use, and the associated high levels of stigma and discrimination experienced by people who use drugs, has engendered a strong emphasis on the ethical and human rights imperatives associated with the meaningful involvement for people who use drugs in drug policy (Bas-tos, 2012; Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network, 2008; Kleinig, 2012). Initially, calls for greater meaningful participation in drug policy pro-cesses came largely from drug user organisations, harm reduction and drug policy reform groups Increasingly, the importance of engaging people who use drugs in drug policy development is being acknowledged at the highest levels of mainstream political discourse on drugs including in the Outcome Document from the 2016 United Na-tions General Assembly Special Session (UNGASS) on Drugs (UN, 2016) and a recent statement on global drug policy from the UN Chief Exec-utives Board (UN, 2019).

Despite these commitments to the greater involvement of people who use drugs and evidence of ongoing civil society efforts to open-out this space over the past decade (Fordham, 2018), questions remain about how principles of engagement in relation to people who use drugs are being implemented in practice in high-level UN drug policy fora such as the Commission on Narcotic Drugs (CND) (IDPC, 2019c). Although there is a growing literature on the participation and influence of drug user representatives and organisations in drug policy settings at the local, country and a small number at regional levels (AIVL, 2012; Anker, 2006; Bjerge, Duke, Asmussen Frank, Rolando & Eisenbach-Stangl, 2016; Efthimiou-Mordaunt, 2015; Frank, Anker & Tammi, 2012; Kerr et al., 2006; Lancaster, Seear, Treloar & Ritter, 2017; Melaugh, 2018; Mold, 2008; O’Gorman, Quigley, Zobel & Moore, 2014; Osborn & Small, 2006; Sharma & Chatterjee, 2012; Storbj ̈ork, 2012; Ti, Tzemis & Buxton, 2012; Zibbell, 2012), much less attention has been paid to ‘drug user representation’ in the global drug policy setting of the UN. Given the critical leadership role of the UN in global drug policy, further research on ‘drug user representation’ within this setting is warranted.

If there is to be greater involvement of people who use drugs in UN drug policy settings, in addition to descriptive accounts of who is involved and what happens there is a need to unpack the concept of ‘drug user representation’ itself and examine how it is constituted in the highly regulatory and politicised frame of international drug control, so as to open up taken-for-granted assumptions and consider their effects. Specifically, the continued criminalisation of people who use drugs means that issues of power, knowledge and legitimacy are deserving of critical attention in relation to ‘drug user representation’ in UN policy settings.

In this paper, we draw on poststructural theory and critical drug policy scholarship to consider how ‘drug user representation’ is consti-tuted in normative UN drug policy discourse and other practices. Spe-cifically, we critically examine the assumptions and logics underpinning these material-discursive practices including which knowledges count, who gets to legitimately speak, and what is it possible to be, say and do in this context. To explore these questions, we examine a corpus of publicly available documents from the UNGASS on Drugs and associated processes of the CND. We critically interrogate these data across three co-constitutive domains, examining: the subjects of ‘drug user repre-sentation’ (how the ‘drug-using’ subject is constituted and governed through UN drug policy discourses and other practices); the objects of ‘drug user representation’ (the key material-discursive practices employed by ‘drug user representatives’ in conducting their represen-tations); and the forms of ‘drug user representation’ (the productive ef-fects of governing practices and modes of engagement on ‘drug user representation’ in the UN drug policy context).

Making legitimacy: Drug user representation in United Nations drug policy settings

Ahead of the UNAIDS Multi-Stakeholder Consultation on 16 September, 33 civil society and community-led organisations working on drug policy and harm reduction are urging the UNAIDS Programme Coordinating Board (UNAIDS PCB) to uphold the rights of people who use drugs and harm reduction in the new UNAIDS Strategy.

This letter includes six key recommendations from our community and sector and we asking UNAIDS PCB to advocate for these at the upcoming Consultation.

Now, more than ever, we need their leadership to be strong, bold and unrelenting in ensuring that key populations, including people who inject drugs, are prioritised in the new UNAIDS Strategy; harm reduction services are available, scaled-up and fully funded to meet the HIV prevention and health needs of people who use drugs wherever needed; communities, including community-led services, and civil society are at the front and centre of the HIV response; and barriers to services, including criminalisation, stigma, discrimination, punitive laws and policies, are removed.

The new UNAIDS strategy will have profound implications - either by compounding or alleviating the political invisibility of people who use drugs. We need them to show a commitment to people who use drugs in your engagement in the Strategy process.

We will not end AIDS if we keep leaving people who inject drugs behind.

Call to uphold the rights of people who use drugs and harm reduction in the new UNAIDS Strategy

The need to change our language in relation to people who use drugs has become an increasing topic of discussion, but there is still a long way to go. People who use drugs are highly diverse and their relationship with drug use takes many different forms. Current prohibitionist approaches to drug use and ‘war on drugs’ rhetoric does little to encourage language that acknowledges this diversity. Instead, it promotes and maintains negative stereotypes that construct people who use drugs as morally flawed, inferior, unreliable, and dangerous.

Language does not stand still. It is dynamic, and the language and words we use are always changing. This makes it difficult to be absolute in the way we use language. Nevertheless, there are times when certain language and words used in relation to people who use drugs can be disempowering, divisive, confusing, or give offence.

Compiled by INPUD and the Asian Network of People who Use Drugs (ANPUD), this guide aims to explain our current position on the use of language and to provide clear advice on what is acceptable to us as communities of people who use drugs. We want to encourage all people to be thoughtful about the language and words they use, and have therefore provided a reference guide that identifies stigmatising language and gives non-judgemental, strengths-based, and respectful alternatives.

Words Matter! Language Statement & Reference Guide

Under the auspices of three-year grants from the Robert Carr Fund, the ‘Harm Reduction Consortium’ and the ‘Consortium of Networks of People Who Use Drugs’ exist to challenge the global war on drugs, support harm reduction services and funding, and protect the rights and health of people who use drugs. The Consortia are comprised as follows:

 International Drug Policy Consortium (IDPC), Harm Reduction International (HRI), Youth RISE, Women and Harm Reduction International Network (WHRIN), Middle East and North Africa Harm Reduction Association (MENAHRA), Eurasian Harm Reduction Association (EHRA), European Network of People who Use Drugs (EuroNPUD).

Consortium of Networks of People Who Use Drugs:

 International Network of People who Use Drugs (INPUD), Asian Network of People who Use Drugs (ANPUD), Eurasian Network of People who use Drugs (ENPUD), African Network of People who use Drugs (AfricaNPUD), South African Network of People who use Drugs (SANPUD).

Both Consortia have an ongoing commitment to capacity building and organisational development, and we are therefore seeking a consultant to undertake a capacity scan and review of the financial management structures of our individual member organisations. The review will culminate in two reports (one to each Consortium) containing concrete recommendations and guidance, and a one-day financial management workshop with both Consortia in Q1 2021 (exact venue and dates to be confirmed).

Financial management systems and capacities vary significantly between the Consortia members: some of the more established organisations have decades of experience and manage annual budgets in excess of US$ 1 million, while others are more nascent networks with financial hosts and looking to establish independently in the coming years. There is not a ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach.

The key objectives of the financial management capacity scan are, therefore, to:

determine any capacity needs and priorities of the Consortia members.

identify and flag any financial management ‘red flags’ or concerns.

propose financial management action plans for each organisation to consider, aspiring for best practices across various areas of financial management, accounting, risk management, auditing, etc.

deliver a one-day financial management workshop to help Consortia members build on their capacity and efforts in these areas.

 30 May 2020.Please check the document below for further information on how to submit your proposal.

Request for proposals: Consultant for financial management capacity scan and training

Death Sentences for Drug Offences in Sri Lanka

This week, Sri Lanka’s president signed death sentences for four people convicted of drug-related offences. This follows a 43-year moratorium on the death penalty in Sri Lanka, and the decision to reinstate the death penalty seems to have been driven by the hope that this will increase chances of presidential re-election later this year.

The death penalty is the ultimate denial of human rights, to the fundamental right to life. Sri Lanka seems to be following in the steps of other states who are increasingly violating the rights of marginalised communities in order to gain political support. In fact, the Sri Lankan president, Maithripala Sirisena, has previously praised the horrific war on drugs of President Duterte in the Philippines on numerous occasions, a violent war that has seen tens of thousands of people murdered in extrajudicial killings on the streets, a war that has seen mass detentions, human rights violations, and attacks on human rights defenders and civil society.

Opposition of the Death Penalty for Drug Offences

But Sri Lanka and these countries are out of step with other nations who are abolishing the death penalty. There are 1,200 people on death row in Sri Lanka, all of whom are now at great risk of execution, but the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) have both clearly opposed the death penalty for drug-related offences, and the International Narcotics Control Board (INCB) has explicitly called upon states to abolish the death penalty for drug-related offences.

INPUD and ANPUD emphasise that not only is the death penalty a deplorable denial of the right to life, but international law also prohibits the use of the death penalty for all but the most serious crimes, involving the taking of life. Drug-related offences are not the most serious crimes, and those whose death sentences have been signed have committed no such crime.

If these executions go ahead, and if criminalisation of people who use drugs in Sri Lanka continues, people who use drugs will continue to be driven underground, facing huge barriers in accessing service provision, worsening health and wellbeing, and the welfare of the community at large. These executions will increase harm, threats to wellbeing and health, fear, and social exclusion.

We call for the president of Sri Lanka, Maithripala Sirisena, to immediately call a halt to these executions. People who use drugs are human beings. People who use drugs are mothers, fathers, sons, daughters, sisters, brothers, and grandparents. People who use drugs care for their families and communities, are students, workers, caregivers, doctors, nurses, healthcare providers, artists. We are shocked and saddened to note these regressive trends in countries in South and Southeast Asia, as well as in other parts of the world.

We call on Sri Lanka to call an immediate end to the executions, focussing instead on health, wellbeing, human rights, and service and healthcare provision people who use drugs, and the communities in which they live.

Open letter: death sentences for drug offences in Sri Lanka

Bangkok (14 January 2019) – The Asian Network of People who Use Drugs (ANPUD) has released 11 short films that are developed around issues of people who use drugs, particularly in the countries in South and Southeast Asian regions. The short films were submitted by filmmakers who have been part of the event “ANPUD Short Films Competition 2018”. The competition was launched in July 2018 in celebration of the 10th anniversary of ANPUD.

One of the viewers of ANPUD’s YouTube channel commented on a short film from the Philippines saying,

“While watching, the only way to not get my heart shattered into million pieces is to pretend I don’t have one…. pretending to be heartless, as heartless as President Duterte!!!”.

The short films depict the environmental (or contextual) realities in which drug using communities have been compelled to suffer from many forms of human rights abuses. These realities have been told in many platforms and are only one small aspect of the lives of people who use drugs. Each short film that ANPUD has released will tell or reveal truths about various aspects of their lives that have either been generally ignored or painted as evil and inhuman with moral/political inks.

Visit ANPUD's website to access all 11 short films.

“Our stories have a lot more to offer than how we have been painted for decades”: ANPUD releases 11 short films that can change your perspective on people who use drugs

Thursday, 25th October 2018, 6:00 - 8:00 PM

Linklaters, 10F Alexandra House, 18 Chater Road, Central, Hong Kong

Networking event on the margins of the 7th Asia Pro Bono Conference in Hong Kong

In many countries in Asia, women are being imprisoned at a rate that is higher than for men, mostly for drug offences. This event explores further the driving factors and the potential role of lawyers in ensuring improved justice outcomes for women.

The International Drug Policy Consortium will also launch a series of policy guides (focusing on Thailand, Indonesia and the Philippines), which were developed under the Women, Incarceration and Drug Policy in Southeast Asia project and outline recommendations for addressing the specific vulnerabilities faced by women charged with drug offences.


Regional Coordinator of the IDPC Project on Women, incarceration and drug policy in Southeast Asia


Programme Coordinator, Asian Network of People who Use Drugs (ANPUD)


Regional Director: Asia, International Drug Policy Consortium (IDPC)

Please, RSVP before 24 October by writing to Gloria Lai (glai@idpc.net).

Drugs, crime and punishment: Women and the need for access to justice

ANPUD statement CND Intersessional Meeting in September 2018

On behalf of the Asian Network of People who Use Drugs (ANPUD), I would like to thank the Chair of this CND intersessional meeting and everyone present in the room for this opportunity to contribute by presenting the perspectives of people who use drugs – the people who are most affected by the decisions made here.

we call for immediate end of the unlawful war on drugs approach opted by the countries like Philippines, Bangladesh, Cambodia and Indonesia

 that has resulted in brutal killings of thousands of people suspected of using or selling drugs, where a culture of impunity is promoted and tens of thousands of people are being incarcerated without any fair trial. We are also concerned by the fact that 

our community members continue to be detained in the name of “drug treatment” inside compulsory detention centers and private rehabs where their fundamental rights are being violated on a daily basis.


Between 2008 and 2013, numerous UN agencies and community & civil society organizations had called for immediate closure of compulsory detention centers for drug users in the countries in Southeast Asia. In spite of commitments of some country governments to transition these detentions into a voluntary community-based treatment, the number of facilities and detained people continue to remain high in Southeast Asia. The Philippines government pursued building a mega rehab with the capacity to detain 10,000 people, despite their in-country experts calling it an impractical mistake. 

In 2014, over 450,000 people were detained in 948 facilities in only seven countries of the region.

Similarly, numerous private treatment centers commonly known as rehabs continue to operate with little to no supervision by the states in South Asia region. These rehabs are compulsory and labor intensive camps that are mostly run by untrained staffs. 

A study in Nepal found that these rehabs are programmed to torture drug users in the name of “Therapeutic Treatment”. These rehabs were found engaging in illegal activities like organized kidnapping and detention of drug users leading to further corruption and exploitation.

 Every year many people die due to the torture and lack of timely access to health services inside these private rehabs, yet they go unreported.

UNODC estimates that only around 11% of the total number of people who use drugs worldwide experience drug dependence and may need treatment. However, current treatment model seems to generalize that all drug users need treatment. If the treatment was for Alcohol drinkers, then it simply suggests that, “All Alcohol drinkers will be found lying in a gutter”. 

The goal of current treatment model to achieve total abstinence by detaining people under inhumane and degrading conditions is flawed. Such goal incites violation of human rights and has resulted in overdose cases after release.

If someone told you that “You are a weak person”, you would probably respond with aggression or let it go easily. If more people in your life repeatedly described you as weak person for over a period of time, you may start losing your confidence and gradually feel weak. Can you imagine how a person inside the treatment would feel having to deal everyday with the discriminative labels like addict, social evil, mentally ill person and criminal. How do we even expect them to get empowered when they are forced to believe that they are useless junks that deserve hate, torture and punishment? Many studies have evidently shown that labeling a person discriminatively is directly associated with violence and harmful use of substances.

The compulsory detention centers and private rehabs in South and Southeast Asia are detaining drug users because “Treatment” has become a lucrative business in the disguise of noble social work.

We use drugs by our own choice and preferences. We decided to use for many reasons and the decision will be ours if we ever wanted to quit. It must happen organically and never by force. Pitying and humiliating us for our decision to use will never work. It will only delay our decision-making process to either use responsibly or quit organically.

The goal of dependence treatment should be to reduce drug-use related harms by empowering people to make informed decisions about their drug use through methods that respect their human rights and dignity.

It can be safely said that, as a young person or a teenager, almost everyone breaks some rules or does things that are illegal. May it be one puff of cigarette at minor age or a puff of Marijuana or a fight we picked or violating others privacy, all of us have done something that could have put us into trouble. Many of you were lucky enough to get past it without facing any criminal sanctions or were fortunate enough to have a family that supported you in that phase of your life. Because you got lucky, you have a job that has given you the power to decide over the lives of people who were not as lucky. This is how we are different than you. The only fault of our community members – that were not as lucky as many of you here. It could have so easily been one of you suffering inside those detentions and prisons.

Almost 60 years ago, the journey to solve the world drug problem started by abandoning the solution – which is legal regulation of demand and supply of drugs. 

We have a misconception that legal regulation of drugs means drugs would become free for all. What we do not realize is that by prohibition and criminalization governments have voluntarily handed over entire drugs market to the illicit world and ensured that drugs are free for all.

Today, we live in this dark world where thousands of kinds of drugs are widely available more than ever before. We have no idea about who are affiliated, how they operate, which routes are being used, and who are the end-users. Drugs are available for anyone and everyone who wishes to use them. Now, imagine what would happen if we would turn on the lights and end darkness. We would be able to keep track of everything, regulate demand and divert current illicit drug market revenue to the national budget. This act of 

 is legal regulation of drugs. We need to have an independent evaluation of current drug laws and policies and welcome reforms that protect human rights and that are based on evidence.

Governments and policy makers should meaningfully engage people who use drugs and avail the experience and expertise that our communities have to offer. This is no time to name, shame or blame.

We work because the world will always be full of drugs

 and therefore, no one – not even you, your children and grand children, as a result of their drug use – would have to suffer the torture, humiliations, discrimination, social exclusion and preventable deaths that thousands of our community members have endured.



No human and living beings deserve the pain and sufferings inflicted upon us.



People do not lose their human rights simply because they use or sell drugs.

Asian Network of People who Use Drugs (ANPUD)

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