By The United States President's Emergency Pan for AIDS Relief

PEPFAR’s stakeholders and partners (community and civil society members, multilateral partners, and host governments) are a critical part of efforts toward achieving sustained control of the HIV/AIDS epidemic and, ultimately, an AIDS-free generation. All stakeholders, partners, and other interested parties are invited to provide thoughts, comments, feedback on the implementation and planning of the recently announced $100 million Key Populations Investment Fund.

 The Key Populations Investment Fund was announced during the 2016 United Nations High-Level Meeting on Ending AIDS. It will support both proven and innovative, tailored, community-led approaches to address critical issues and gaps that exist for key populations in the HIV/AIDS response. Key populations are defined per the UNAIDS definition which includes:

gay men and other men who have sex with men,

The fund will address the complex issues that create barriers to HIV prevention and treatment services that continue to keep these communities at the margins of the AIDS response. These include:

acceptance of human rights of all persons, without distinction;

access to quality services for key populations;

systematic and rigorous monitoring of stigma and discrimination combined with clear actions to mitigate stigma and discrimination;

availability of data on population size and utilization of prevention & treatment services by key populations; and

improving the capacity of key populations-led community based organizations to advocate for changes in policies and directly implement services.

Keep up-to-date with drug policy developments by subscribing to the IDPC Monthly Alert.

Key populations investment fund feedback collection form

Somsak Sreesomsong was 18 when he was jailed for selling illegal drugs. Now, turning 30, he is not yet half-way through his 33-year sentence at Bangkok's high-security Klong Prem prison.

Somsak was "just a kid, not a big-time dealer", his older brother Panit told Reuters after a visit to the jail. "We're also serving time, waiting for him to get out so he can help the family."

More than a decade after Thailand declared a "war on drugs", the country is admitting defeat. As the prison population soars, Justice Minister Paiboon Koomchaya told Reuters he was looking at changes to the country's draconian drug laws.

"I want to de-classify methamphetamine but Thailand is not ready yet," said Gen Paiboon, meaning downgrading the drug, popularly known as "meth", from a Category 1 substance, which would reduce jail time for possession or dealing.

Use of methamphetamine is spiralling across Southeast Asia, and authorities are struggling to respond.

In Thailand, bulging prisons prompt rethink of drug war

Ever wonder what the world will look like in 2030? Will there be driverless cars, David Bowie hologram concerts, a self-sufficient Africa or even Blue Ivy headlining Glastonbury? These things are all unknown but what is certain, viral hepatitis can be eliminated if we take action now.

Today, on World Hepatitis Day (July 28th), the World Hepatitis Alliance is launching NOhep, a global movement to eliminate viral hepatitis by 2030. The movement is calling on people across the world to sign up to the movement and take action to make the elimination of viral hepatitis our next greatest achievement.

Viral hepatitis, an inflammation of the liver due to a virus, is the 7th leading cause of death globally, accounting for 1.4 million deaths per year – more than HIV/AIDS or malaria. The most common of the viruses are hepatitis B and C, which affect up to 400 million worldwide and cause 80% of liver cancer deaths worldwide.

“We have the right to treatment for a cancer-causing virus” said Raquel Peck, CEO of World Hepatitis Alliance. “Let’s join together on World Hepatitis Day to stop millions of needless deaths and ensure everybody receives life-saving medication because only then we will have a world with “NOhep”. said Raquel Peck, CEO of the World Hepatitis Alliance and NOhepitivist

NOhep’s fundamental objective is to build awareness of viral hepatitis and the crucial role people can play, in their own lives, at more structural levels and in their communities, to help eliminate viral hepatitis by 2030. Based on the premise of social justice, NOhep is calling on all levels of society to take action to ensure the elimination of viral hepatitis is our next greatest achievement.

Nothing like this has ever been done for hepatitis before, and now, with the adoption of the World Health Organization’s Viral Hepatitis Strategy and the commitment by 194 governments to eliminate viral hepatitis, it can be a reality. By 2030, NOhep hopes to bring people together to save 7.1 million lives, by raising global awareness of hepatitis, helping those affected by hepatitis to speak up and by pressing governments to scale up resources to meet the targets outlined the strategy.

We may not know if The Simpsons will still be running, nor if our dogs will be able to speak to us by 2030, but one thing is for sure, if we take action today we can help eliminate viral hepatitis. If you want to find out more what could happen in 2030, watch the ‘2030 Year in Review’ video and join the movement at NOhep.org.

Achieving a world with “NOhep” to eliminate viral hepatitis by 2030

Toronto city council has approved the creation of three safe injection sites in the downtown core.

Council voted 36-3 in favour of the motion at its meeting Thursday.

The Toronto Board of Health unanimously supported the creation of the sites in early July, and families of drug users have backed them, as well. Councillors were warned drug overdoses are going up in the city, and that something needs to be done about the public health issue.

The sites, which are aimed at providing a safe environment for drug users, are expected to be installed at three locations in the downtown core.

Safe injection is already legal in Canada, as long as the federal government grants approval under Bill C-2. Federal Health Minister Jane Philpott told CBC News in March that supervised injection sites are among a number of strategies the government has put forward to cope with drug abuse and overdose deaths.

The Toronto Board of Health recommended three sites, which the city plans to ask the province to fund, including the Toronto Public Health office near Dundas and Victoria streets, the South Riverdale Community Health Clinic and the Queen West-Central Toronto Community Health Centre.

Both Toronto Mayor John Tory and Toronto police Chief Mark Saunders backed the creation of the sites, despite concerns from critics that they may encourage drug use.

Toronto city councillors vote in favour of safe injection sites

The week of 6-10 June 2016 in New York was marked by the High-Level Meeting on AIDS where the states, members of organizations, were talking about the progress achieved since 2011, about the actions required in future and also made commitments to implement the global action plan to eliminate AIDS by 2030.

Thumbnail: Flickr CC Norwegian Mission to the UN

High-level Meeting on HIV / AIDS in New York

Оставайтесьвкурсесобытийнаркополитики, подписавшисьна

Встреча высокого уровня по ВИЧ/СПИДу в Нью Йорке

Many stereotypes are ascribed to drug users, almost all of them negative. Of course, people who use drugs are just as diverse as the general population. But if there is one thing many of us are, it is resourceful.

We are also used to social exclusion, and we have ways of handling it.

Recently in South Africa, drug users, harm reductionists and advocates pooled resources, seized an opportunity to overcome exclusion, and produced something hugely positive and important.

The International AIDS Society (IAS) conference, AIDS2016, was held in Durban last week, from July 18-22. Its theme was “Access Equity Rights Now” and one of its supposed objectives was promoting the needs of key populations left behind in the prevention and treatment of HIV/AIDS.

So you’d have expected to hear a lot there about people who use drugs and their rights, a lot about harm reduction and drug policy—including calls for decriminalization.

Unfortunately this was not to be, as I wrote last week for the Open Society Foundations (OSF). Tellingly, of the 446 abstracts submitted for the conference that contained the the phrases “harm reduction,” “drug use” or “drug policy,” only six were accepted for oral presentation. Unforgivably, when around two million people are living with HIV related to injecting drug use, drug users were mostly ignored.

Although the main conference failed in this respect, a simultaneous event sought to address the real needs of people who use drugs—and I was proud to be involved.

Keep up-to-date with drug policy developments by subscribing to the IDPC Monthly Alert.

"I have rights like any other person" - How the world's drug users created something great in Durban last week

That was the consensus among panellists at the Adapt or Fall symposium, convened by the Alliance at theInternational AIDS Conference in Durban this week. The debate followed several of the fault lines that mark the civil society response to HIV and are forcing many within the movement, including the Alliance, to change.

The seminar examined the legitimacy of civil society actors within the HIV response, and the risk of ‘blurring’ between state actors and NGOs. It also looked at the contrast between INGOs, and their heavy footprint at international diplomatic fora, and those from the activist end of the civil society spectrum, whose vivid demand thatUN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon meet them in a Durban street went unheeded earlier this week.

Whilst acknowledging the barriers that prevent the passion of the street being heard in forums like the UN, Christine Stegling, the Alliance’s Executive Director, cautioned against civil society evacuating those formal corridors of power. Neither should we ignore the agency of a new generation of advocates for whom AIDS has been ever present and who speak with complete legitimacy in those fora, she said.

George Ayala, Executive Director of the Global Forum on MSM and HIV, said he saw no shame in engaging with processes like the recent UN High Level Meeting on Ending AIDS, even if only to highlight how they fail toactively include key population groups.

AIDS 2016: A changing world

July 28th is the World Hepatitis Day. This year’s theme is “Know Hepatitis – Act Now”. In 2016, for the first time in history, the World Health Assembly adopted global targets for viral hepatitis. These targets include reducing hepatitis B and C incidence by 30% and reducing mortality by 10% by 2020. One of the key approaches to reaching these targets is harm reduction services for people who inject drugs.

According to the WHO estimates, 130 to 150 million people globally live with chronic hepatitis С (HCV). HCV epidemic causes an immense damage to public health. Research shows that each year about 700,000 people globally die of HCV related diseases. The epidemic is concentrated in middle and low income countries where about 73% of people with HCV live and where access to treatment is limited.

About 6.6 million people with chronic viral hepatitis C live in Eastern Europe and Central Asia. In many countries of the region, key groups are affected the most, including first of all people who use injectable drugs (PUD). In this group HCV prevalence reaches 90%. About 80% of new HCV cases are registered among PUD. Moreover, the spread of hepatitis C among PUD is 10 times the spread of HIV in this key population.

Harm reduction is crucial for fighting hepatitis

The War on Drugs, mass incarceration of drug users, and the failure to provide proven harm reduction and treatment strategies has led to high levels of HIV, tuberculosis, and hepatitis B and C infection among prisoners—far higher than in the general population. With an estimated 30 million people passing in and out of prisons every year, prisoners will be key to controlling HIV and tuberculosis epidemics worldwide, according to a major six-part Series on HIV and related infections in prisoners, published in The Lancet and being presented at the International AIDS Conference in Durban, South Africa.

“Prisons can act as incubators of tuberculosis, hepatitis C, and HIV and the high level of mobility between prison and the community means that the health of prisoners should be a major public-health concern. Yet, screening and treatment for infectious diseases are rarely made available to inmates, and only around 10% of people who use drugs worldwide are being reached by treatment programmes”, says lead author of the Series and President of the International AIDS Society Professor Chris Beyrer, John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, USA. “The most effective way of controlling infection in prisoners and the wider community is to reduce mass imprisonment of injecting drug users.”

Worldwide, between 56% and 90% of people who inject drugs will be incarcerated at some point. In parts of Europe, over a third of inmates inject drugs (38%), in Australia (55%) it is more than half. This is in stark contrast with injecting drug use the general population (0.3% in EU and 0.2% in Australia).

Mass incarceration of drug users leads to high levels of HIV, tuberculosis and hepatitis among prisoners

Following a unanimous decision by the Steering Committee of EHRN, Anna Dovbakh, currently Program Director, is taking over the leadership of EHRN Secretariat from Sergey Votyagov on the 1st of August 2016.

Sergey Votyagov is stepping down as Executive Director of EHRN Secretariat due to moving on to become the Director of the Robert Carr civil society Networks Fund. 

“I am proud that In the last 5 years under my leadership of the Secretariat as the Executive Director, our Network took its programmatic work up to the next level and expanded the portfolio and scope of our regional projects that advance EHRN’s mission and serve the interests of our region, harm reduction sector and people who use drugs,”

 commented Sergey on EHRN’s achievements.

The high level and effect of EHRN’s programmatic work is proven by such examples of regional activities as Regional Forum on Healthcare and Human Rights of People who Use Drugs, held in Chisinau, Moldova, in May 2014 and Regional High Level Dialogue on Successful Transition to Domestic Funding of HIV and TB Response in EECA, organized in Tbilisi, Georgia, in September 2015 as well as small grants program “Through Peers Efforts” for drug user groups.

Thumbnail: Flickr CC 23rd International Harm Reduction Conference

EHRN announces leadership change

The New York NGO Committee on Drugs (“NYNGOC”), a committee operating under the Conference of NGOs in Consultative Relationship with the United Nations (“CoNGO”), announces the election of the following new members to the Executive Committee at its Annual General Meeting held June 23, 2016:

 New York City Bar Association Committee on Drugs & the Law (Chair)

The Center for Legal and Social Studies (CELS) (Vice Chair)

Amnesty International (Treasurer) Farah Diaz-Tello, National Advocates for Pregnant Women (NAPW) (Secretary)

Zimbabwe Civil Liberties and Drug Network

Ganja Growers and Producers Association / St. Catherine Ganja Growers and Producers Association

Since its formation in 1984, the NYNGOC has grown to represent over 120 civil society organizations from around the world. The NYNGOC provides a platform for discussion of drugs and drug-related issues and serves as an interface with the United Nations for collaborating on solutions to global drug issues. Aiming to support civil society organizations as they engage with the UN system, the NYNGOC, in partnership with the Vienna NGO Committee on drugs (VNGOC), created and launched a formally recognized Civil Society Task Force (CSTF) for the 2016 UN General Assembly Special Session (UNGASS) on Drugs. The CSTF facilitated meaningful engagement of the global community of NGOs, Civil Society Organizations and people and communities impacted by drugs and drug-related issues at the 2016 UNGASS.

For more information on the New York NGO Committee on Drugs, please contact: NewYorkNGOC@gmail.com or visit www.nyngoc.org.