Experts question drug law HIV link
Wednesday July 14th, 2010
Decriminalising addictive drugs might help prevent the spread of HIV, experts said today.
This week, doctors are debating the consequences of drug laws on HIV rates around the world.
The debate,
a series of articles published on the website of the British Medical Journal,
coincides with the 18th International AIDS Conference in Vienna, held
from 18-23 July.
Strict laws in countries including Russia and Ukraine put limits on the use of opiate substitution treatment, despite good evidence for its effectiveness in HIV prevention, say Professor Tim Rhodes of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, UK, and colleagues.
The risks of injecting opiates include hepatitis, bacterial infections and overdose, as well as HIV. Most of the 1.5 million people with HIV in eastern Europe caught the disease by injecting drugs.
"Access to opioid substitutes and syringe distribution programmes can reduce risky injecting practices and incidence of HIV," they write. The authors calculated that Russia could substantially reduce HIV infections by allowing opioid treatment.
Stephen Rolles, senior policy analyst at the Transform Drug Policy Foundation, Bristol, UK, goes further and states that criminalisation of drugs should be ended. Instead, he calls for regulation of drug markets. This approach would "reduce the health and social harms caused by current policy".
Prohibition has exacerbated the spread of HIV, as well as hepatitis B and C infection among injecting drug users, he adds.
Dr Evan Wood of the University of British Columbia, Canada, says that methadone treatment significantly reduces heroin use compared with other treatments, and reduces the HIV risk for injecting drug users.
At present, "ideology trumps scientific evidence when it comes to policies on illicit drugs" in countries with policies like Russia, he states. Evidence-based approaches are vital for tackling the illicit drug problem, he concludes.
Rhodes, T. et al. Policy resistance to harm reduction for drug users and potential effect of change. The British Medical Journal, 2010;341:c3439.
Rolles, S. An alternative to the war on drugs. The British Medical Journal, 2010;340:c3360.
Wood, E. Evidence based policy for illicit drugs. The British Medical Journal, 2010;340:c3374.
Tags: Drug and Alcohol Abuse | Europe | Flu & Viruses | UK News
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