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Joined: 02 May 2007 Posts: 23 Location: Eastern Ontario
Posted: Thu Mar 13, 2008 6:36 pm Post subject: International Users Address Commission on Narcotic Drugs
Stijn Goosens, speaking on behalf of INPUD (International Network of People Who Use Drugs), addressed the plenary session of the U.N. Commission on Narcotic Drugs in Vienna, Austria today. This is a major accomplishment as drug users have been struggling for many years for the opportunity to speak to one of the major bodies responsible for determining international prohibitionist policy regarding the drugs we choose to use.
You can read Stijn's statement in the International Harm Reduction Association's HR2 blog on Harm Reduction and Human Rights.
Here's some of what Stijn had to say:
Quote:
We believe that the Commission and the other institutions of drug control would greatly benefit from the involvement of People who use drugs as part of the civil society engagement in the process of drugs policy making:
* To work together for improvement and to make more cost-effective the treatment and harm reduction measures for people who use drugs.
* To cooperate closely together in the global fight against AIDS, Hepatitis C and other blood born diseases.
* To avoid peoples unnecessary dying.
* To avoid the unnecessary, but socially harmful and expensive incarceration of people just because of the consumption of drugs that are considered to be illegal.
* To cooperate closely together in the fight against the criminalization, stigma, discrimination and marginalization of people who use drugs and to work together for social inclusion and health.
* And to avoid violations of the human rights of people who use drugs.
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