Drug use and the right of everyone to the highest attainable standard of health
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Drug use and the right of everyone to the highest attainable standard of health Damon Barrett Deputy Director, Harm Reduction International Joint World Conference on Social Work and Social Development, Stockholm, July 2012
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Drug use and the right of everyone to the highest attainable standard of health. Damon Barrett Deputy Director, Harm Reduction International Joint World Conference on Social Work and Social Development, Stockholm, July 2012. - PowerPoint PPT Presentation
Transcript of Drug use and the right of everyone to the highest attainable standard of health
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
