"The criminalisation of illicit drug users is fuelling the HIV epidemic and has resulted in overwhelmingly negative health and social consequences. A full policy reorientation is needed."

Please visit www.viennadeclaration.com and join the global call for evidence based illicit drug policy.

The Vienna Declaration was drafted by a team of international experts, and initiated by the International AIDS Society, the International Centre for Science in Drug Policy (ICSDP), and the BC Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS. The Declaration cites "overwhelming evidence" that not only has the excessive focus on drug law enforcement failed, but that the current policies create harmful consequences. Just some of these consequences noted are:

• HIV epidemics fuelled by the criminalisation of people who use illicit drugs and by prohibiting sterile needle provision and opiod substitution treatment
• HIV outbreaks in prisons due to lack of HIV prevention services provided and punitive laws
• The undermining of public health systems when law enforcement drives drug users away from HIV prevention services and towards riskier environments
• Stigma towards people who use illicit drugs, which reinforcesthe political popularity of criminalising drug users and undermines HIV prevention and other health promotion efforts
• Billions of dollars wasted on a 'War on Drugs' approach to drug control that does not achieve its stated objectives and, instead, directly or indirectly contributes to the above harms

Read the rest of the Vienna Declaration, and sign it here!