Lewis Calls for an End to the Medieval Treatment of People Who Use Drugs

December 13, 2011

A new report by the Eurasian Harm Reduction Network, with a foreword by AIDS-Free World Co-Director Stephen Lewis, reveals the brutal human rights violations against drug users and calls on governments to implement humane drug policies and promote effective responses to the HIV epidemic. The report presents results from the monitoring of human rights violations in Eastern Europe and Central Asia and offers recommendations on how to improve the access of drug users to HIV prevention and care.

In the foreword to the report, Lewis calls for the end of laws and policies on illicit drug use that ‘condemn drug use as a moral failing…and treat drug addiction as a high crime’ and advocates for policies that acknowledge the ‘fundamental lesson that protecting the rights of those living with or at risk of HIV is also the most effective way to contain the epidemic.’ Lewis pulls no punches in addressing the governments who continue to violate basic human rights: ‘The behaviour of the governments of Eastern Europe and Central Asia towards people who use drugs—and there is not single country without some degree of culpability—is both brutal and diabolical. I can scarcely believe what these pages yield. It is though we were thrown back to medieval times when agony on the rack was the punishment for the most trifling of so-called crimes.’

The report, titled ‘HIV and the Law in Eastern Europe and Central Asia,’ can be accessed here: http://harm-reduction.org/ehrn-publications.html