It felt like a Mardi Gras parade, but with a serious purpose. As I walked out of my hotel today toward New Orleans City Hall, dozens of people followed me, holding signs that read “Prevention Not Punishment” and “Needle=10 cents, HIV=$400,000.” Together, our motley crowd of sex workers, drug users, advocates, health care providers, researchers, and law enforcement professionals filled the broad expanse of plaza in front of City Hall.
Most of the marchers were in New Orleans for a conference to address the need to reform drug laws in the southern United States and to increase access to services proven to reduce transmission of HIV and hepatitis, and prevent overdose.
Southern states have some of the highest HIV infection and death rates in the country. Deep poverty combines with harmful laws and policies that increase the risk of acquiring, transmitting, and dying of HIV. Our new report, “In Harm’s Way”,presents the experiences of sex workers, drug users, and transgender women, describing how they are neglected, punished, and stigmatized by punitive laws and misguided policies that endanger their health, safety, and lives.
The state of Louisiana has one of the worst HIV epidemics in the country, and one of three people living with HIV is not in treatment. Many are people who inject drugs, and they get tested for HIV late, if at all, and advance to AIDS very quickly after diagnosis. Yet state criminal laws are blocking proven prevention approaches such as syringe exchange, which reduces transmission and when combined with outreach and health education brings many people into services.
Cities such as New York and San Francisco that have active syringe exchange programs have significantly reduced HIV transmission among drug users and saved countless lives. Police practices also undermine efforts to curb the HIV epidemic in New Orleans. Sex workers, especially transgender women, say that if police stop them and find they are carrying condoms, they threaten arrest on prostitution charges.
At City Hall Plaza, I was joined by the conference participants and our local partners Women with A Vision and BreakOUT! Trystereo, and a transgender activist, Tela Love, from New Legacy Ministries. New Orleans City Councilwoman Latoya Cantrell also addressed the crowd, stating her commitment to protecting the right to health for all New Orleans residents.
Louisiana has the highest incarceration rate in the world, but putting sex workers and drug users behind bars is fueling the state’s serious HIV epidemic. Unless the state replaces punishment with public health, HIV will continue to endanger the lives of New Orleans’ most vulnerable residents.
