On September 15, the Obama administration submitted the Memorandum of Justification explaining their decision to name Bolivia as a country that "failed demonstrably... to adhere to their obligations under international counternarcotics agreements" for the second year in a row. Once again the determination presents inaccurate, poorly prepared information, further complicated by confusing language.
Italian prisons are severely overcrowded. A document endorsed by major organizations urges the Government to implement treatment alternatives to imprisonment for drug addicts.
Approximately 100 participants from across Asia and the Pacific met in Bangkok from 28 September to 2 October to take part in the third UNAIDS Asia Pacific M&E meeting. Participants were invited to discuss preparations for the upcoming UNGASS on HIV as well as how to strengthen M&E among key affected populations, including injecting drug users.
The UN Human Rights Council, the highest political body in the UN dealing specifically with human rights, has adopted two resolutions of considerable importance to harm reduction – HIV/AIDS and human rights, and access to essential medicines. These resolutions recognise that harm reduction is a part of a rights based response to HIV/AIDS and that access to essential medicines is a component of the right to the highest attainable standard of health. This puts the Council in line with ECOSOC and the General Assembly and highlights again the isolationism of the CND on these critical issues.
In Indonesia, people living with HIV/AIDS (PLHAs) have for too long stigmatized and discriminated for their illness. The Indonesian National AIDS Commission (KPAN) has to play a more active role in ensuring that not just AIDS is reduced, but beyond that that PLHAs will no longer be stigmatized and discriminated against.
Results from an initial overview of the randomised injectable opioid therapy trial (RIOTT) has shown that clients form a 'hard-to-treat' population responded well and made notable gains in abstaining from street heroin and improvements in health and social functioning.
Civil society in Asia Pacific are mobilising early for next year's UNGASS on HIV. There will be some linkages between the recent UNGASS on drugs and this upcoming UNGASS on HIV.
Argentina's Supreme Court decriminalised the small-scale use of marijuana, opening the way for a shift in the country's drug-fighting policies to focus on traffickers instead of users. Elsewhere in Latin America, Colombia and Mexico have already decriminalised the possession of small amounts of drugs. Brazil and Ecuador are looking at an initiative to legalize some drug use.
Two years after the initial launch during the ICAAP in Colombo, the Asian Network of People who Use Drugs (ANPUD), the only regional network of drug users in Asia, is forging ahead and being formalized as an active organization driven by its membership.