More than 55 years have passed since UN have adopted the Single Convention on
Narcotic Drugs and almost three decades since its last update. Since
then, many things have changed. Illicit drugs, instead of disappearing,
have become a wide and mass experience. Unfortunately, it resulted in
many casualties because of many reasons, like Hepatitis C and
AIDS, that has taken its deadly harvest.
From
that moment mankind has developed new ways of handling the drug issues.
Harm Reduction has started just as a brave idea, but now has become
a leading ideology in the Western world. Still though, even in the
European Union, some of the Member States from Central and Eastern
Europe are denying its effectiveness in tackling harms made by
consumption of narcotic drugs.
For
that reason, we in Europe and beyond, need a single act - a set of obligations for international community- that would
unite the continent and the whole world so that the Harm Reduction would become a standard. Many, not only
in Asia or Africa, are still denied access to basic Harm Reduction
services like needle exchange or methadone therapy.
On
the other hand, more progressive countries are introducing Harm
Reduction measures such as drug consumption rooms or even heroine
distribution. Activities, that in the light of UN Drug Convention, are
somehow in the 'gray zone'.
There
is also an issue of cannabis. Relative harmless drug for possession of
which users are still punished, sometimes even in the prison terms.
And
that is why we are coming with the idea of the Harm Reduction
Convention, that would be at the beginning introduced by the Council of
Europe and the European Union to later become the fourth Convention on
Narcotic Drugs.
We
are just on the beginning of long road towards this goal and we need
Your help in that. As the very first step of our action, we have started
public consultations on the draft of the core text of the Harm
Reduction Convention. We believe that a lot of you have a lot of
knowledge and experience in Harm Reduction and Drug Policy and therefore we are asking you to join us in this fight for the greater good.
Please,
read the original text of our proposal, discuss it among your members
and send us your comments, corrections and proposals at the address:
consultations@hrconvention.org.
We
ask you to help us and if you for some reasons do not want or cannot
join our team, we understand, but would be thankful for distributing
this letter to your acquaintances and friendly organizations.
