Basic HTML Version
July 2013 |
drinkanddrugsnews
| 15
www.drinkanddrugsnews.com
Harm Reduction International |
Vilnius, 2013
than it has been,’ he said, with countries in the region having to compete for
decreasing resources.
‘It’s very strange to sit in a harm reduction conference and realise that the last
needle exchange programme in Romania will close this year. We in harm
reduction will increasingly be at the cold intersection of austerity and social
exclusion. We need to press donors to do more on coordination, and we need to
do better about deciding who can pay what the other can’t.’
Advocacy for funding at national and regional levels would also be vital, he
told delegates. ‘In the same way that we taught people safe injection techniques
and how to reverse overdose, we need to be able to read budgets, understand
budget cycles and press for local funding.’
TIME TO BE BRAVE
POLITICIANS MUST LEAD PUBLIC OPINION, NOT FOLLOW IT
‘We introduced harm reduction measures in 1986-87, and it was extremely
controversial,’ said former British health secretary Lord Norman Fowler. ‘We were
told it would increase criminality. That did not happen, but what did happen is
that new drug-related infections have been consistently down to 2 per cent ever
since. Harm reduction programmes work.’
One of the key lessons was that countries needed to be brave, he told
delegates, with politicians leading public opinion rather than following it. ‘I go
around the world and I hear about all sorts of pilot projects, but I don’t think we
even need pilot projects any more. The evidence is there, and it’s absolutely clear.’
Indonesia’s harm reduction programmes had begun in 1999, Anton Djajaprawira
of community-based organisation Rumah Cemara told the session, with ‘huge
interest’ fromdonors ever since. ‘But what this hasmeant is that at times therewere
the same interventions being implemented in one particular area.’
There was also often a lack of flexibility, he said, with needs going unmet and
a general lack of community involvement. In response, community-based harm
reduction initiatives had begun in recent years, with interventions now operating
across three provinces.
‘Community-based operations decide their actions based on community
needs,’ he stated. ‘It’s a participatory approach, and it fills the gaps rather than
implementing the same interventions. It integrates all the available harm
reduction services.’
Rumah Cemara’s work now included prison pre-release programmes, capacity
building, legal assistance, youth work, needle and syringe distribution and services
for remote areas, he said. ‘And for services to work, the involvement of people who
use drugs at management level is essential.’
For now, however, programme sustainability still depended on donors and the
government, he said. ‘But grassroots communities can perform very well if they’re
given the trust and flexibility to do so.’
‘If you break stereotypes,
you break down walls...’
VYTENIS POVILAS ANRIUKAITIS
Photography: Ian Ralph
‘Harm reduction programmes
work... The evidence is there,
and it’s absolutely clear.’
LORD NORMAN FOWLER
‘The war on drugs has failed. When I
have a business that fails I shut it down,’
Sir Richard Branson told the conference via a special video
message. In 2016, the world would be forced to confront this
failure at UNGASS, he said, and part of what made drug policy
discussions so difficult was that current and former drug users
were not properly listened to. ‘If we want to help people we
mustn’t even think of throwing them in jail. Harm reduction
makes financial sense and saves lives. It is the right thing to do.’