Sign The Peition
TO: Dr. Gilberto Gerra, Chief, Global Challenges Section, United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime
Professor Hamid Ghodse, President, International Narcotics Control Board
Professor Michel Kazatchkine, Executive Director, Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria
Act To Increase Availability Of Methadone And Buprenorphine.
End Abuses By Law Enforcement.
We Need Care, Not Cops!
We are HIV activists, clinicians, service providers, and people living with HIV from all over the world, and we are concerned that globally, methadone and buprenorphine, the best studied and most effective medications for opiate dependence, are available to less than 10% of people who need them. We call on UNODC, INCB, and the Global Fund to do more to end overregulation of these essential medicines, and to stop police abuses that inhibit access to treatment.
Why are we concerned? Because it has been proven that methadone and buprenorphine reduce HIV transmission by decreasing injecting drug use. These medicines also fight AIDS by helping those who are HIV-positive adhere to treatment. They have many other benefits as well, such as reducing drug overdose, and increasing job productivity and family satisfaction.
PETITON
- In Azerbaijan, Kyrgyzstan, and Moldova methadone treatment has been interrupted when customs issues and lack of buffer stock forced dose reductions or a total stop to treatment—with patients suffering as a result.
- In China and Vietnam, police have the authority to decide or approve who participates in treatment, though drug dependence treatment should be the domain of health professionals – not law enforcement.
- In Ukraine, doctors providing substitution treatment have been arrested or threatened with arrest if they do not turn over patient names to police. When doctors are arrested, treatment simply has stopped.
In many countries police harass patients – waiting outside clinics to meet arrest quotas or extract bribes. Sometimes, doctors use threat of painful withdrawal symptoms to try to coerce confessions from patients to crimes they did not commit.
UNODC: We ask you to make clear that police should not be involved in deciding who does and does not enter treatment, and should not have access to patients names. We want care, not cops!
INCB: While some concerns about diversion may be justified, the system is totally out of balance. We ask you to focus not only on diversion, but also on barriers to methadone and buprenorphine treatment for addiction. Diversion is usually a sign that there is an unmet demand for treatment. We ask you to work with countries to ensure adequate supplies of medicines, including buffer stocks, and to restore balance. We want care, not cops! .
Global Fund: Please review proposals with an eye toward continuity of treatment and adequate supply of methadone and buprenorphine, as well as patient protections from police violations of confidentiality. Models that have worked to ensure stocks of TB medicines could be employed to maintain buffer stocks of methadone and buprenorphine. We want care, not cops!
Please act without delay! Millions are waiting for their medicine!
