International experts, activists, and health professionals agree that ‘we cannot end AIDS until we end the war on drugs’
The 18th International AIDS Conference, held in Vienna in 2010, included a high-profile statement called The Vienna Declaration. The declaration, which has since been endorsed by over 20,000 groups, organizations, and individuals, rests firmly on the principle that drug policy should be based on science, not on ideology. It states that “the criminalization of illicit drug users is fuelling the HIV epidemic and has resulted in overwhelmingly negative health and social consequences.”
Dr. Evan Wood, an internal medicine physician working in Vancouver, and Dr. Julio Montaner, director of the British Columbia Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS, joined several high-profile speakers in Washington during the 19th AIDS Conference in July 2012, calling for an end to the war on drugs.
At the Summit of the Americas in Colombia in April 2012, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper said: “I think what everyone believes and agrees with, and to be frank myself, is that the current approach is not working, but it is not clear what we should do.” In the meantime, critics and observers of the government’s policies on drugs await the government’s political will and courage to change.
We speak with Dan Werb, co-founder of the International Centre for Science in Drug Policy.
