Organised by: International Drug Policy Consortium, with the support of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, UNAIDS, the World Health Organization, Brazil, Colombia, Czechia, Ghana, Switzerland, Uruguay, the European Union, the African Network of People Who Use Drugs, Elementa DD.HH., Fiocruz, Harm Reduction International, the International Network of People Who Use Drugs, the Rede Brasileira de Redução de Danos e Direitos Humanos and Youth RISE

Gloria Lai, IDPC. Welcome to you all, I work for IDPC and am based in Bangkok. Harm reduction has gained much visibility in the past few years at the UN as an essential aspect of the right to health, in particular by the UN human rights system: OHCHR reports from 2015-2018-2023; UNSR on health reports from 2024; concluding observations by CESCR; and of course the CND has finally included the term in a resolution last year (resolution 67/4). Harm reduction is also clearly included in the UN System Common Position on drugs. And yet, despite this win in Vienna, there is reluctance from UN drug control agencies to elevate harm reduction as a human right – as has been clearly shown by the UNODC’s own analysis of drug use and the right to health in its 2024 World Drug Report. On the ground, harm reduction services around the world show that they continue to be inaccessible for many, direly underfunded, and at constant risk of being closed down – while a majority of countries continue to impose severe sanctions against people who use drugs. This side event will be an opportunity to reflect on this reality and discuss the urgent need for reforms. We have a great panel today, and our first panellist is Zaved Mahmood of the OHCHR.

Zaved Mahmood, OHCHR. We are very pleased to cosponsor this event. I want to make one announcement: we will submit all the side events we cosponsored this year into a document and submit it to the CND as a Conference Room Paper as we have done this year – the Conference Room Paper has been submitted by Czechia, Uruguay, Switzerland and IDPC. I want to say one line: harm reduction saves lives. We can’t contradict this statement. We have evidence of that in our report. We outline why harm reduction is needed an what framework it should be given. The UNSR on the right to health has released two reports on harm reduction last year. I hope you look at those documents, which identify the key components of harm reduction. The UNSR explains that harm reduction is not just services, it’s also about decriminalisation. Without it, harm reduction will not work. In the last two days, two countries from Africa mentioned to me that they had developed MMT, but people are not coming because they are afraid. In another country, OAT was introduced in prison, but people are afraid their punishment will be increased if they get OAT. I also want to mention that when we’re talking about harm reduction and decriminalisation, we also need to look at this comprehensively. This morning we had a discussion with our colleagues from Brazil who are considering that we need to look at socio-economic issues; livelihoods, unemployment, homelessness. Without addressing those issues, it won’t work. Last issue to mention, yesterday in our statement we highlighted the issue of funding. In this crisis time, we must work together on how to face this crisis. I want to refer to the Deputy High Commissioner at the HRC panel on HIV last week: it’s not just about cutting funding, it’s an issue of life and death. Just now, we are having another event on youth and harm reduction education. This issue has not been much looked at so far. We have seen education programmes that do not include harm reduction. It’s important we focus on the youth and harm reduction education should be one of the priorities.

Anand Grover, Former Special Rapporteur on the Right to Health and Member of the Global Commission on Drug Policy. All treaties have to play due regard to the constitutional, legal and administrative frameworks of a country. Harm reduction cannot be looked in a silo. You have to tackle criminalisation with decriminalisation. I often go to court and the judge says ‘it’s a drug user’. It’s difficult to fight with the notion. We also have traditional uses of cannabis in India, which is more accepted. The criminalisation destroys a person, not drug use. The person’s family is destroyed, their health is at risk, their income is removed. It’s not just about health. But in the World Drug Report, the concept of decriminalisation is not included. The chapter on health is a gate for us to start discussing this. Let me now turn to children and families. Harm reduction is very important, it is a strategy that it not ideological and has proven very effective in the context of HIV and beyond, for instance in the case of overdose. We must make information accessible. In terms of international law, several UN mechanisms have stated clearly that harm reduction is part of the right to health. To ignore that is a tragedy for the CND. The CND has isolated itself from the UN human rights mechanisms. The moment it starts engaging with UN human rights mechanisms, it will realise that what it is doing is harmful. The CND and World Drug Report don’t recognise that the US, the country that started the war on drugs, has failed. Criminalisation is a colonial legacy. I remember one of the ministers in India on TV with me once, and he stated that India had never criminalised before. The US pushed for that. And now that the US has decriminalised, the CND is not taking note of this. It’s not realising that the war on drugs has failed. More and more people are going to prison, more and more people are using drugs.

Ahmed Said, African Network of People Who Use Drugs. Thanks to IDPC. In a moment of crisis, they made sure I was able to come here. I want to say how important it is to involve people who use drugs. We should recognise that whatever war we are talking about, it’s always been a war against the people, not about drugs. People have been framing drug use as inherently problematic because people don’t want to recognise that these are harmful drug policies. Because of my drug use, I have been arrested, convicted and now have a criminal record. There was no counselling, no medication, no help or support. It’s just to polish the complexity of my experience. It’s not about problematic drug use, it’s about bad drug policies. It is important from the human rights commission, from different member states to start redirecting the issue from individuals to defective systems that target and stigmatise people who use drugs. We need a social centred approach to drug use and harm reduction. I also want to talk about involving PWUD in programmes. It’s essential because our voice from local grassroots movements to the international has been critical to shaping policies. We must challenge harmful narratives against PWUD. Every time you involve PWUD in policy, the results are transformative. The community changes drastically. A good example in Kenya in 2012: I was the first to bring needlses and syringes to people who use drugs. The donor first wanted people to come to the drop in centre, which they didn’t do. You had to go to them. Today, the Kenya is proud to say that it has a vibrant NSP. Today, the government has a legal notice to make sure that people who distribute needles and syringes are protected. We also build trust with governments, we can establish meaningful responsoes that emphasise health, human rights, dignity and safety. People right now as we speak wake up hungry, they will sleep hungry, they don’t know where they will sleep, because of bad policy environments. We need to make a strong commitment to maintain community-led responses to achieve the 2025 global AIDS targets and 2030 SDGs. By fostering inclusivity, dialogue that incorporates the expertise of PWUD, we can advocate for harm reduction serategies driven by and for people who use drugs. When PWUD are at the forefront of these debates, the results are better tailored interventions and more supportive communities. We can dismantle the barriers created by defective drug policies and ensure people have a better future. The war on drugs is about few individuals who want to remain in power, who want to take control over the rights of the people. As a human rights activist, we believe drug use is part of our human rights.

Yuliya, Georgieva, Center for Humane Policy, Bulgaria. It’s the first time I can share positive experiences! In 2017, there was a mass disruption of harm reduction activities in the whole country. We decided we needed to work on the policy. In 2019, we understood that this was not moving fast enough. So we tried to save the only place in Bulgaria that provided services for people who use drugs: the Pink House. But we didn’t have any money or support. So we decided to ask the people. We campaigned to receive funding to save the Pink House. It was amazing because drug use is very stigmatised, but we still received 189,959 euro. Another miracle happened in 2023, where the city of Sofia recognised the need for harm reduction. Together with the Ministry of Social Affairs, for the first time we received funding for our work with PWUD. We worked with homeless people, people who didn’t have social insurance, etc. The Elton John AIDS Foundation supported our project and we reinstated harm reduction services in Sofia. We paid for the social inclusion of people, and the EJAF grant enabled us to support our activities. The same year, we applied for a public tender by the MoH for an HIV project. This is the picture between 2020 and 2024. You see that the money from the Sofia Municipality in 2023 reached more than 400,000 for HIV prevention and treatment. The results after we started the outreach work after 7 years: between July 2023 and December 2024 we reached 1,614 individuals. They are the most vulnerable people in Sofia. We made 8,317 contacts with them, we tested more than 1,000 PWUD. Unfortunately, the rate of HIV and hepatitis C among these people is very high: 9.1% and 47.8% respectively. It is a pity because in Bulgaria hepatitis C is very difficult to be treated if they don’t have health insurance. At the moment, a month ago we initiated a roundtable in the Parliament to provide some understanding about what harm reduction is. We analysed funding available and only 10% of all funds are allocated to HIV prevention and harm reduction. After the roundtable, we initiated a Parliamentary working group. I hope that this time, our politicians will finally understand.

Coss Marte. We have three legal medical cannabis dispensaries in the state of New York. I employ formerly incarcerated people there from the community. When do you expect things to really change?

Anand. Decriminalisation is on the agenda. We’ve been advocating for a very long time. In India, we have had people seeing what fortune could be made from the legalisation of cannabis. There is some move being done to legalise cannabis. But this government is not favourably inclined towards drug use and legalisation. I don’t think we’ll have legalisation soon, but we try to make sure the government realises that various countries have decriminalised certain drugs, and it has been beneficial for everyone. We are pushing for decriminalisation now, but there is no timeline.

Maria-Goretti Loglo, IDPC, Ghana. We sought to introduce harm reduction and provide services for those seeking services. Some governments have rolled back on these services. We need to make sure legal frameworks protect them to ensure that they are not impacted by whoever is in power. In Ghana, we have introduced a legislative instrument to recognise harm reduction legally in our country.

Zaved. This is so incredibly important for sustainability. Another issue I wanted to mention is the enabling environment for the provision of services. Civil society space is shrinking, especially for those working on drug policy. CSOs are being targeted as so-called foreign agents. Conducing environment for service providers and civil society should be in the package of discussions on this in Vienna, Geneva and capital.

Eric, European Law Student Association. I appreciate the focus of this event. But I can’t help but notice how important it is to the conversations we’re having upstairs here at the CND. How can we progress from here when we feel there are two parallel conversations.

Anand. At the Global Commission on Drug Policy, we wanted to go to the International Criminal Court to get an expert opinion on the drug conventions. The burden of proof should be on the state, not the person who uses drugs. States have agreed to go to the Interamerican Court for an advisory opinion this way. A lot of students work with me. If you are interested in this issue, I welcome your insights.

Ahmed. Let me say that I really like the remarks on having a legal framework that protects service providers for harm reduction, as well as the person who uses drugs. In many countries we’ve seen a lot of disconnect between proponents of harm reduction and people in government who promote security. Nothing protects PWUD who are the recipients of harm reduction services. People cannot go to the services if they are not protected.

Nara Araujo, Director of Prevention and Social Reinsertion, Ministry of Justice and Public Security, Brazil. It’s a good opportunity for us to listen about harm reduction. I want to highlight what has been said by the OHCHR, the Lancet Global Health editorial in December, etc. The problem of the punitive approach towards drug policy affects disproportionately some people. They do not reach people in the same way. We know, we’ve been saying it a lot, that there are some people who are disproportionately affected – women, black people, traditional communities, they suffer a lot and it’s different from the general population. As the Chair of the Group of Friends on HIV and AIDS in Vienna until a couple of weeks ago, Brazil has a public health that is universal. For HIV, we have testing centres, we have networks of services, we have PeP and PrEP. But we still leave people behind: who are they? We have people who use drugs who live in vulnerable complexes. They don’t reach the services because we are sending the message through other public policies that they don’t have the same rights as other people. When we have a policy that systematically stops, arrests and incarcerates people, especially black people from marginalised communities, they don’t have the same right to the city and services. We send different messages in different public policies. We need to align these messages. If it’s universal, it should be for everyone. We have to talk about it. The best experiences we have in the country in access to HIV and health services are those where we do not have a vertical approach, but a horizontal one. There, service providers are able and prepared to listen to people’s demands. We must listen and involve actively PWUD when we develop public policy.