Moving the Needle on Drug Policy in Asia - Shroomery News Service

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Simplepowa
In Pursuit of Knowledge

Registered: 03/06/09
Posts: 4,310

Moving the Needle on Drug Policy in Asia

#20877445 - 11/22/14 11:33 PM (9 years, 4 months ago)

Moving the Needle on Drug Policy in Asia
November 18, 2014 by Takayuki Harada Global Drug Policy Program Add your voice
Moving the Needle on Drug Policy in Asia
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We hope that the creation of these types of health services can drive a greater social movement toward offering support, not punishment, to people who use drugs.

Bad drug policies can drive health crises and damage individuals and communities. They can also become the regional norm as countries copy their neighbors.

Asia boasts some of the harshest laws in the world, including the death penalty for drugs and caning of drug users. These laws steer people away from lifesaving health services and fill prisons with people in need of treatment.

However, there are regional pioneers that are charting new courses on drug policy. With the support of the Open Society Foundations, researchers from Mejiro University went on a fact-finding mission to learn about alternative approaches in the region and beyond.

In Taiwan, we encountered a burgeoning harm reduction movement that is successfully stemming a startling increase in HIV. For example, there were typically a few hundred new HIV infections per year, but in 2004, the number increased to 1,520. The following year, 3,380 new infections were detected, most from injecting drug users.

In response, the Centers for Disease Control in Taiwan introduced harm reduction services that prioritized prevention of HIV, including needle exchanges and methadone maintenance therapy. Currently, about 20,000 syringe and needle kits are distributed every month in Taiwan. Since used syringes and needles are exchanged with new ones, 90 percent of the distributed syringes and needles have been collected.

Availability is key. People must have easy access to lifesaving equipment. To that end, there are also 500 needle and syringe vending machines near parks, pharmacies, and hospitals throughout the country. In addition, drug users can receive methadone treatment at 102 hospitals in Taiwan for about 20 Taiwan dollars per treatment (or about 67 cents in USD).

This helped reduce new HIV infections to below 2,000 in 2006, a dramatic reduction over a short period of time.

We hope that the creation of these types of health services can drive a greater social movement toward offering support, not punishment, to people who use drugs.

... read more: http://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/voices/moving-needle-drug-policy-asia

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dwnlw2slw
METANOIA

Registered: 12/20/13
Posts: 432
Last seen: 11 months, 23 days

Re: Moving the Needle on Drug Policy in Asia

[Re: Simplepowa]
#20885237 - 11/24/14 07:02 PM (9 years, 4 months ago)

I couldn't find one in Asia but here's a syringe/needle vending machine in Aachen, Germany:

And here's a crack pipe machine in Canada (Vancouver?):

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