Drug use and the right of everyone to the highest attainable standard of health

Damon BarrettDeputy Director, Harm Reduction International

Joint World Conference on Social Work and Social Development, Stockholm, July 2012

“In seeking to reduce drug-related harm, without judgement, and with respect for the

inherent dignity of every individual, regardless of lifestyle, harm reduction stands as a clear

example of human rights in practice”

Professor Paul Hunt, 2008

Drug control: Laudable goals

Concerned with the health and welfare of mankind...

...the medical use of narcotic drugs continues to be indispensable for the relief of pain and suffering

Preamble, 1961 Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs

Narrative of existential threat

...addiction to narcotic drugs constitutes a serious evil for the individual and is fraught

with social and economic danger to mankind

Conscious of their duty to prevent and combat this evil

Preamble, 1961 Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs

‘Unintended Negative Consequences’

UNODC, Making drug control fit for purpose: Building on the UNGASS decade, E/CN.7/2008/CRP.17, 2008

‘Risk environment’ for drug related harms

Political rhetoric, media reporting“Let's get a few things straight -- I hate junkies more than anything else...If every junkie in this country were to die tomorrow I would cheer...They are worthless” Ian O’Doherty, Irish Independent Feb, 2011

Importance of language

Healthcare and social welfare

• NSP/OST

• HCV and HIV treatment

• Benefits and housing

• Domestic violence shelters

Policing and healthcare

• Withdrawal to extract information/extort funds

• Interference with harm reduction services/use of healthcare setting to arrest on other grounds

• Drug users as ‘soft targets’ for arrest quotas

Sentencing and Detention

• Prisons

• Permanent criminal records

• Drug detention centres

• Corporal punishment

‘Insite’ Safe Injection Facility, Vancouver

Canada (A.G.) v. PHS Community Services Society2011 SCC 44

“The fact that addiction is bound up with the hard core of the worst problems confronting us

socially makes it discouraging at the outset to talk about ‘solving’ it. ‘Solving’ it really means

solving poverty and broken homes, racial discrimination and inadequate education, slums

and unemployment...."

Robert F. Kennedy 1965

Challenge is undoing the ‘risk environment’ and creating an

‘enabling environment’ for positive health and social

outcomes

Social determinants of health