The Human Toll of Criminalizing Drug Use in the United States
This report finds that enforcement of drug possession laws causes extensive and unjustifiable harm to individuals and communities across the country. The long-term consequences can separate families; exclude people from job opportunities, welfare assistance, public housing, and voting; and expose them to discrimination and stigma for a lifetime. While more people are arrested for simple drug possession in the US than for any other crime, mainstream discussions of criminal justice reform rarely question whether drug use should be criminalized at all.
In this 47-page report Human Rights Watch said that countries could significantly improve access to pain medications by addressing the causes of their poor availability.
Drug Dependency Treatment, Mandatory Confinement, and HIV/AIDS in China’s Guangxi Province
In China, illicit drug use is an administrative offense and Chinese law dictates that drug users “must be rehabilitated.” In reality, police raids on drug users often drive them underground, away from methadone clinics, needle exchange sites, and other proven HIV prevention services.
Barriers to HIV/AIDS Treatment for People Who Use Drugs in Thailand
This 57-page report found that routine police harassment and arrest – as well as the lasting effects of former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra’s 2003 drug war – keeps drug users from receiving lifesaving HIV information and services that Thailand has pledged to provide.
Russia’s Human Rights Obligation to Provide Evidence-based Drug Dependence Treatment
<table cellpadding="3" cellspacing="0"><tr><td><img src=" http://www.hrw.org/images/home/2007/100//russia17278.jpg" align="left" border="0" /></td> <td valign="top"> In this 110-page study, Human Rights Watch found that the treatment offered at state drug treatment clinics in Russia was so poor as to constitute a violation of the right to health.</td></tr></table>
Human Rights Abuses Impeding Ukraine’s Fight Against HIV/AIDS
This report documents how draconian drug laws and routine police abuse of injection drug users – the population hardest hit by HIV/AIDS in Ukraine – keep them from receiving lifesaving HIV information and services that the government has pledged to provide.
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