An Iran Special! Harm Reduction Coalition visits Tehran. Interviews on drugs and HIV, how Iran got harm reduction, regional country networking, a visit to a drop in center, and traffic warnings. Heroin, hijabs, music and eggplant. See more pics on the HRC Facebook page.
Exploring Ibogaine: Interviews with Dimitri Mugianis, Anwar Jeewa and Marie Cotter. Released to coincide with the New York City opening of the film I’m Dangerous with Love, this week’s podcast focuses on ibogaine, a substance with helpful, healing properties for people who use drugs.
Subscribe to our podcasts on iTunes, or download them from our website!
Brief post on StreetRx, a cool new website:
“StreetRx displays user-submitted information on the latest street prices for prescription drugs. StreetRx necessarily relies on user-submitted information; data should be interpreted accordingly. All submissions are anonymous. StreetRx is not affiliated with any government or law enforcement agency.”
The question itself is blasphemy. Unlike other diseases, from Alzheimer’s to breast cancer, AIDS is not one we talk about curing. To talk about eradication is particularly careless and cruel, if only because the relatively brief history of AIDS is so riddled with hype and dashed hopes. In scientific circles, however, discussion of an endgame has been creeping back over the past few years, which is why Jon Cohen, writing for MIT’s Technology Review, argues that it’s time to put that “dirtiest of four-letter words”—cure—back on the table.
A lot of smart, talented HIV treatment & research advocates have been focusing on this issue, including Project Inform and Treatment Action Group.
Sign the petition to save evidence-based drug policy in Hungary!
The Hungarian government took over the EU presidency - please remind them to follow the principles of evidence-based EU policies!
A few weeks before it took over the EU presidency, the Hungarian government announced that it does not support the country’s national drug strategy because they say it’s based on “drug liberalization and harm reduction” - even though the document is supported by the vast majority of professionals and civil society organizations and it is fully in line with the EU drug strategy. In addition, the national drug coordinator was dismissed, the National Drug Prevention Institute was abolished and the drug budget was significantly cut….
” —PLEASE SUPPORT HUNGARIAN NGOs by signing the petition (click on the link at the bottom to read the text of the statement)!
Send your 1) name 2) title/position 3) name of your organization/institute 4) your country of residence to this email address: tasz@tasz.hu (With “Petition” In the subject line)
Background & petition text at Drug Reporter, the drug policy website of the Hungarian Civil Liberties Union:
Sign the petition to save evidence-based drug policy in Hungary!
Staff Member 1: I was just cleaning out the sharps container and you won’t believe what is the new stamp on the bags..
Staff Member 2: What
Staff Member 1: Louis Vuitton!
Staff Member 2: Ohhhhh! Classy!
I hear Takashi Murakami designed the bags for the really expensive limited-edition dope….
I would like us to please not allow the democratic party to blur the ALSO very real connection between anti-immigrant violence (i.e. hyper nationalism, hyper heteropatriarchy, hyper white supremacy) and these shootings. This violence is what Latin@s in the US have been living with especially since…
Check out this great new Facebook campaign — let’s help them get up past 1,000 people ‘Liking’ their page by the end of today!
The War on Drugs, A War on People
“The War on Drugs: A War on People” was created by a number of organizations that are concerned by the proliferating number of human rights abuses that occur under the auspices of the war on drugs. Drug users, “social deviants”, minorities, young people and innocent people caught in the cross fire are among the millions of individuals that have been denied basic human rights during the nearly 50 years of the war on drugs.
Each month this page will highlight a different type of human rights abuse carried out under the drug prohibition regime.
While the supporting organizations have different drug policy objectives and views, they are unified in their effort to stop human rights abuses in the name of the war on drugs. Please help us by spreading the word and joining the movement!
The Harm Reduction Coalition’s latest podcast is now live!
This week we look at the travel problems encountered by drug users with an eye on the 2012 International AIDS Conference being held in Washington, DC. Interviews with Kirstie Douse from Release (UK), Zoë Dodd from the Toronto Users’ Union (Canada), Dasha Ocheret from EHRN (Russia) and Ann Livingston from VANDU (Canada). Subscribe on iTunes or listen below!
UK-based journalist Gus Cairns, who has HIV, commented on Michael Petrelis’ blog:
‘I hate this ad because it’s sadistic and bullying… It’s horrified by gay men and gay sex in general, using images of bodily corruption and disease to ram home things that — despite 50 years of gay lib — we still feel about ourselves: look at the suicide, depression and drug use statistics. The message it gives — not factually, but with all the visceral power of that 5-frame shot of a ruined ass — is that if you’re out on the scene, death and decay are stalking you and serves you right if they get you.’
” —Sean Strub, ‘It’s Never Just HIV’ Ad Campaign Oversimplifies the Issue (HuffPo)Great in-depth look at how needle exchange in Iran got started and political support. Harm Reduction Coalition’s Allan Clear will be traveling to Iran later this month.
A great exploration of different harm reduction strategies across North America. These quotes resonated with me and highlight just how important effective harm reduction measures are to injection drug users:
“What we do in [the United States] is make drugs as unsafe as they possibly can be, and we do that through laws, which means that, if you get busted with drugs, you go to prison for a long time. And that’s designed as a deterrent to make people stop using drugs, which obviously it isn’t,” said Allan Clear, executive director of the Harm Reduction Coalition, which runs the national conference.
“We do things like take syringes out of circulation, which has caused epidemics of hepatitis and HIV. So harm reduction is a way of trying to make drug use safer for people who use drugs, without demanding that they stop using drugs,” Clear added.
Harm reduction can include a range of services from needle exchanges and condom distribution to safe consumption sites and access to addiction services such as methadone and buprenorphine treatments and detox facilities.
Great article (of course we’re biased because they quoted Allan…)
It’s 2011, and there’s a lot of work ahead of us. Here are five resolutions for 2011:
1. Make syringe access a reality for all people who inject drugs
It’s been just over twelve months since the United States lifted the federal funding ban on syringe exchange, but syringes remain out of reach for far too many injectors. Health officials have been slow to invest additional resources in syringe access, and state budget cuts have left many programs across the country struggling to stay afloat. The change in federal funding policy hasn’t trickled down to most states with syringe exchange programs, and many other states still have restrictive laws that keep syringes out of reach. Effective HIV and hepatitis C prevention depend on increasing access to syringes: it’s time to scale up funding and coverage, and removing remaining legal and policy barriers.
2. Put overdose prevention on the national agenda
Overdose deaths doubled over the last decade in the U.S. and now kill more people than firearms. The majority of unintentional drug overdoses involve opiates (heroin, oxycodone, etc.); many of these deaths could be prevented through education, training, and broader community access to naloxone, a drug that reverses the effects of opiate overdoses. We need to start treating overdose as a public health problem and a national priority.
3. Expand access to hepatitis C treatment for people with histories of drug use
New and much more effective treatments for hepatitis C — protease inhibitors, taken with interferon and ribavirin — will soon be available. But will people with histories of drug use have access and share in the benefits? Many doctors have traditionally been reluctant to treat drug users — especially active users — for hepatitis C, due to stigma and myths. But research has clearly shown that people who use drugs can be successfully treated, have similar rates of adherence to treatment, and low rates of reinfection following treatment. It’s time for the health care system to start meeting the treatment and access needs of the largest proportion of people living with hepatitis C.
4. Maintain our momentum in the new political environment
The 2010 U.S. elections resulted in significant changes to the political landscape in Congress and in many states — new names, new players, new dynamics. We need to make sure that regardless of who’s in power, we continue to build support for harm reduction policies and establish drug user health as a cornerstone of public health, human rights, and social justice.
5. Support harm reduction advocacy across the country and around the world
The harm reduction movement is made up of hundreds of programs and thousands of people working locally and networking globally. We need a strong movement now more than ever — to build on our successes, spread harm reduction models more widely, and fight back against those who would reverse all the progress we’ve made. It’s not enough to have science or justice on our side — we need to share our tools and strategies, and we need to keep supporting each other.
2011 is a critical year, and we’re going to work hard to make it a good one for harm reduction.
