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Transform alerts media to US pressure on UN harm reduction initiatives

Transform has worked hard over the past month to alert the worlds media to the breaking story of US pressure on UN support for harm reduction initiatives, revealed in the leaked 'Dear Bobby' letter from the the head of the UNODC, Antonio Costa, to Mr Robert B. Charles, Assistant Secretary for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs at the US Department of State.

The news feature, copied below, is the first result of these efforts and the first time this story has been reported in any world media.

For more developments see: latest news 21.01.05

US Cash Threat to Aids War

Martin Bright, Home Affairs Editor
The Observer, February 06 2005

The United Nations agency responsible for the global fight against drugs has been forced to abandon its campaign to reduce Aids infection by giving clean needles to heroin addicts after threats by America to end its
funding, The Observer can reveal.

The Bush administration opposes any programme that appears to condone the continued use of drugs, and wants the UN to seek abstention by users, combined with an end to narcotics production.

Drug experts believe that if the UN shelved its so-called 'harm reduction' strategy in favour of an outright war on drugs, it could contribute to a rise in the rate of infection with HIV/Aids through shared needles and unsafe sex, as well as increasing the number of addicts.

Correspondence seen by The Observer shows that on 10 November 2004, Antonio Maria Costa, Executive Director of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) held a meeting with US Assistant Secretary of State Robert Charles to discuss the Bush administration's concerns about the direction the UN was taking.

A leaked letter sent by Costa the next day shows him agreeing to demands to expunge references about harm reduction from UNODC literature and statements. 'On the the general issue of "harm reduction", I share your
concern. Under the guise of "harm reduction", there are people working disingenuously to alter the world's opposition to drugs. These people can misuse our well-intentioned statements for their own agenda, and this we
cannot allow.

'Accordingly, as we discussed in our meeting, we are reviewing all our statements, both printed and electronic, and will be even more vigilant in the future.'

Costa goes on to clarify the UN agency's position on needle exchanges, where addicts are given clean injecting equipment to minimise the risk of infection from HIV and and hepatitis. In words that have caused alarm among
drug treatment experts, Costa wrote: 'We neither endorse needle exchanges as a solution for drug abuse, nor support public statements advocating such practices.'

The issue will come to head at next month's meeting in Vienna of the Commission on Narcotic Drugs, the UN's central policy-making body on drugs.

Danny Kushlick, director of the Transform Drug Policy Foundation said: 'The evidence for the success of harm reduction in reducing HIV and AIDS among injecting drug users is unquestioned. It has taken decades to build harm reduction into the core of international drug programmes and this kind of intervention has the potential to severely undermine initiatives that have already saved the lives of millions of people.'

The shift in policy will have serious implications for Britain, which remains committed to the philosophy of harm reduction domestically and through aid programmes funded by the Department for International Development.

Source:http://observer.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,,1407079,00.html (copyright)

For more information and links on this story see: latest news 21.01.05