UNODC, WHO AND UNAIDS SPEAK OUT FOR HARM REDUCTION:

In a statement by the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS, 14 March 08 at the meeting in Vienna of the Commission on Narcotic Drugs, “a set of measures for people who use drugs” was recommended. Recommendations number one and two called for needle and syringe programmes, and “opioid substitution therapy.” One can only hope governments are listening, and for none is heeding and implementing the recommendations more imperative than for the United States and the Russian Federation – the former clinging to its “flat-earthist” policy of rejecting the evidence for efficacy of needle/syringe exchange in curtailing spread of the virus, and the latter persisting in its refusal to legalize a form of treatment that has been shown to have unparalleled therapeutic outcomes.