UN Right to health report focuses on drug policy and human rights -- from the Special Rapporteur on the right to health [2 Attachments]

Fwd: UN Right to health report focuses on drug policy and human rights -- from the Special Rapporteur on the right to health [2 Attachments]
From: Jirair Ratevosian

[Attachment(s) from Raminta Stuikyte included below]

Dear all,

Attached is a lovely and comprehensive document that will serve as a great reference and instrument for advocating for more humane and effective drug policy and approaches, talking about discrimination and stigma of people who use drugs.

Produced by Anand Grover, UN Special Rapporteur on the right of everyone to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health. Shared by Mauro Guarinieri. Presented at the UN General Assembly.

Below I copied recommendations from the document. English and Russian versions attached. For Arabic, Spanish, French and Mandarin please download them at: http://ap.ohchr.org/documents/dpage_e.aspx?m=100
--Raminta
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Member States should:

• Ensure that all harm-reduction measures (as itemized by UNAIDS) and drug-dependence treatment services, particularly opioid substitution therapy, are available to people who use drugs, in particular those among incarcerated populations.
• Decriminalize or de-penalize possession and use of drugs.
• Repeal or substantially reform laws and policies inhibiting the delivery of essential health services to drug users, and review law enforcement initiatives around drug control to ensure compliance with human rights obligations.
• Amend laws, regulations and policies to increase access to controlled essential medicines.

[77.] The United Nations drug control bodies should:

• Integrate human rights into the response to drug control in laws, policies and programmes.
• Encourage greater communication and dialogue between United Nations entities with an interest in the impact of drug use and markets, and drug control policies and programmes.
• Consider creation of a permanent mechanism, such as an independent commission, through which international human rights actors can contribute to the creation of international drug policy, and monitor national implementation, with the need to protect the health and human rights of drug users and the communities they live in as its primary objective.
• Formulate guidelines that provide direction to relevant actors on taking a human rights-based approach to drug control, and devise and promulgate rights-based indicators concerning drug control and the right to health.
• Consider creation of an alternative drug regulatory framework in the long term, based on a model such as the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control.
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Attachment(s) from Raminta Stuikyte

2 of 2 File(s)

UN Sp Rapp Health Report Aug 2010_drug policy + approaches.pdf

UN Sp Rapp Health Report Aug 2010_drug policy + approaches RU.pdf