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HEALTH
Filippo von Schloesser
dollars each year on arresting and punishing drug-users –a gross
misallocation of limited resources that could be more efficiently used
toward public health and preventive approaches. At the same time,
repressive drug policies have fueled the stigmatization, discrimination and
mass incarceration of people who use drugs. As a result, there are very few
countries that have reported significant declines in new infections of
hepatitis C among their population. The failure of the governments to
prevent and control hepatitis disease has great significance on future
health and welfare budgets in many countries (from the Michel
Kazatchkine presentation at the Conference).
The Priorities Listed by the Global Commission:
In 2012, the Global Commission on Drug Policy released a report that
outlined how the present report focuses on hepatitis C as it represents a
'war on drugs' and is driving the HIV epidemic among people who use
drugs: another massive and deadly epidemic for this population. It provides a brief overview of the hepatitis C virus, before exploring how the
'war on drugs' and repressive drug policies are failing to drive transmission
down. The silence has been broken about the harm in repressive drug policies: they are ineffective, violate basic human rights, generate violence,
and expose individuals and communities to unnecessary risk. Hepatitis C is
one of these– yet it is both preventable and curable when public health is
the focus of the drug response.
3. Governments should therefore reform existing drug policies –ending the
criminalization and mass incarceration of people who use drugs, and the forced
treatment of drug dependency.
1. Governments should publicly acknowledge the importance of the
hepatitis C epidemic and its significant human, economic and social cost,
particularly among people who use drugs.
2. Governments must acknowledge that drug policy approaches dominated by
strict law enforcement practices perpetuate the spread of hepatitis C (as well as
HIV and other health concerns). They do this by exacerbating the social
marginalization faced by people who use drugs, and by undermining their
access to treatment services.
4. Governments must immediately redirect resources away from the 'war on
drugs' to public health approaches that maximize hepatitis C prevention and
care, developed with the involvement of the most affected communities.
It is time to acknowledge the mistakes of the past and prevent future damage
to the general population. ML
filippo@nadironlus.org
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