The Drug Policy Website of the Hungarian Civil Liberties Union

Harm Reduction: Revolutions

Submitted by sarosip on 9 April, 2009 - 21:25
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Debate on harm reduction at the UN high level meeting on drugs - is it really a storm in the teacup?

Altough harm reduction was not mentioned in the Political Declaration adopted by the high level UN meeting on drugs (March 11-12, 2009), 26 countries supported a statement made by Germany that interpreted the term “related support services” (a euphemism substituting harm reduction in the text) as harm reduction services. Other governments, like the US, Japan and Russia opposed this interpretation.



“Little more than a storm in a teacup” – this is how the head of UNODC described the heated debates on the term “harm reduction” in his closing speech. Not everybody shares his opinion. For example, the Transnational Institute (TNI) concluded in its excellent blog that this year the “Vienna consensus on drug control has cracked”. I tend to agree with TNI: despite the noisy celebarations of the “century of drug control”, there are signs that the global prohibition era is coming to an end. Maybe change will not come suddenly but step by step: each new harm reduction program is a small revolution against the old UNiform ways of drug control.

Posted by Peter Sarosi

Comments

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on 16 April, 2009 - 01:36
Hello, is there also a bittorent version available, because Youtube streams make my browser hang! thanks

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on 19 April, 2009 - 22:44
HI there is no such version, but if you write me at takacsistvan_at_tasz.hu I will send you the film through www.toldacuccot.hu a Hungarian site dedicated for sending big files. István Takács HCLU

Submitted by Stella (not verified) on 26 May, 2011 - 23:52
That’s really srehwd! Good to see the logic set out so well.

Submitted by PaulPauliny (not verified) on 6 January, 2012 - 05:34
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