The International Narcotics Control Board (INCB), an independent body that monitors UN drug control conventions, should be overhauled so that its anti-drug efforts do not overlook HIV prevention, two AIDS advocates wrote this week in a commentary published in The Lancet.
INCB has publicly criticized countries that offer or condone needle exchange programs and supervised injection sites, wrote Joanne Csete, former executive director of the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network, and Daniel Wolfe of the New-York based Open Society Institute. INCB has also openly chastised Stephen Lewis, former UN special envoy for AIDS in Africa, for lauding the HIV prevention work of Insite, the supervised injection facility in Vancouver.
But whereas INCB congratulates member states that crack down on drugs, it remains silent on countries where medicine to treat addiction is unavailable or illegal and where treatment is "incarceration by another name," including "unproven and punitive" measures, Csete and Wolfe wrote.
"We believe that this is an excellent opportunity to look at the INCB and the way that it is out of step with other things that the UN General Assembly itself has declared, as well as with the spirit, we think, of the UN drug conventions which mandate that states should provide humane care for people who use drugs," Csete said in an interview.
In 2001, the General Assembly unanimously endorsed a commitment on HIV/AIDS prevention that includes needle exchange and methadone substitution therapy.
The activists' call for an independent review of INCB was supported by Lewis, who is very critical of the board for meeting in secret, withholding minutes, and not explaining the basis for its decisions.
The UN will assess its progress with illegal drugs this year.
The commentary, "Progress or Backsliding on HIV and Illicit Drugs in 2008?," appears in The Lancet (2008;371(9627):1820-1821).
05/29/08
UN Should Overhaul Secretive Narcotics Control Board, HIV Activists Say
Source: Canadian Press:: Helen Branswell; Courtesy of the CDC National Center for HIV, STD, and TB Prevention