Bill Clinton Calls for Harm Reduction

Three new videos from the Hungarian Civil Liberties Union, filmed at the Vienna AIDS 2010 conference this month. In one of them, former US President Bill Clinton calls for harm reduction, an approach to substance misuse and other social issues of which the most well-known example is needle exchange programs.

In another, Anya Sarang, director of the Andrey Rylkov Foundation, criticizes Russia's drug policy -- timely, in light of the recent appointment of Russian diplomat Yuri Fedotov as UN drug czar.

A third video documents the conference's March for Human Rights, including interviews with participants.

The best known example of harm reduction practices is needle exchange. Under President Clinton, the federal government recognized that needle exchange programs reduce the spread of HIV, but do not increase the prevalence of drug use -- two determinations that by statute allowed the administration to lift the ban on states using federal AIDS funds by states to support needle exchange programs. However, the administration did not actually lift that ban, a decision that advocates attribute to the influence of former US drug czar Barry McCaffrey. In his biography published after leaving office, Clinton expressed support for needle exchange.