https://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle-old/372/usun.shtml

The European Coalition for Just and Effective Drug Policies this week released a November letter from United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime executive director Antonio Maria Costa to a high-level US anti-drug official in which Costa attacked the notion of harm reduction and promised to remove all references to the term from UNODC documents.

The November 11 letter came one day after Costa met with Robert Charles, Undersecretary of State for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs. According to ENCOD, Charles' purpose for the meeting was to express official US concern that the term "harm reduction" had been used and to "encourage" the UNODC to not to it again.

Harm reduction, broadly defined, is the principle that while people may do things that can be dangerous for them, the way to approach such behavior is by attempting to minimize the risks involved. Thus, harm reduction encompasses such activities as providing condoms to populations at risk of sexually transmitted diseases. In the field of drug policy, harm reduction activities may range from providing clean needles to injection drug users to advocates for changes in the law to decrease harm to drug users and the community alike.

Costa apparently got Charles' message loud and clear. Within a day, he wrote to Charles abjectly upholding the official US line. "Under the guise of harm reduction, people are disingenuously working to alter the world's opposition to drugs," he wrote. "These people can misuse our well-intentioned statement for their own agenda, and this we cannot allow." Costa also promised to quit using the term, and assured Charles that "we are reviewing all our statements, both printed and electronic, and will even be more vigilant in the future."

Costa also emphasized UNODC's opposition to key harm reduction activities: "Let me be clear," he wrote. "First and foremost, UNODC maintains a strong opposition to heroin maintenance, as well as drug consumption and injection rooms." And while Costa sadly conceded that needle exchange programs had a role to play in reducing HIV/AIDS infections, he insisted such measures take place only within an overall scheme to reduce demand. The proven utility of needle exchanges puts UNODC "in a difficult position," he complained.

As ENCOD noted, it seems that UNODC supports not harm reduction but "harm production."

	Please make a generous donation to support Drug War Chronicle in 2007!

PERMISSION to reprint or redistribute any or all of the contents of Drug War Chronicle (formerly The Week Online with DRCNet is hereby granted. We ask that any use of these materials include proper credit and, where appropriate, a link to one or more of our web sites. If your publication customarily pays for publication, DRCNet requests checks payable to the organization. If your publication does not pay for materials, you are free to use the materials gratis. In all cases, we request notification for our records, including physical copies where material has appeared in print. Contact: StoptheDrugWar.org: the Drug Reform Coordination Network, P.O. Box 18402, Washington, DC 20036, (202) 293-8340 (voice), (202) 293-8344 (fax), e-mail [email protected]. Thank you.

Articles of a purely educational nature in Drug War Chronicle appear courtesy of the DRCNet Foundation, unless otherwise noted.

Out from the Shadows HEA Drug Provision Drug War Chronicle Perry Fund DRCNet en Español Speakeasy Blogs About Us Home Why Legalization? NJ Racial Profiling Archive Subscribe Donate DRCNet em Português Latest News Drug Library Search special friends links: SSDP - Flex Your Rights - IAL - Drug War Facts StoptheDrugWar.org: the Drug Reform Coordination Network (DRCNet) 1623 Connecticut Ave., NW, 3rd Floor, Washington DC 20009 Phone (202) 293-8340 Fax (202) 293-8344 [email protected]