The right to health and international drug control, compulsory treatment for drug dependence and access to controlled medicines 2010, para. 16
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Paragraph text
Drug use may have harmful health consequences, but the Special Rapporteur is concerned that the current drug control approach creates more harm than the harms it seeks to prevent. Criminalization of drug use, designed to deter drug use, possession and trafficking, has failed. Instead, it has perpetuated risky forms of drug use, while disproportionately punishing people who use drugs. Its ramifications for the health of the wider community, particularly in relation to HIV/AIDS, are no less severe: the 2010 Vienna Declaration notes that the criminalization of illicit drug users is fuelling the HIV epidemic. Millennium Development Goal 6 requires States to commit to halting and beginning to reverse the spread of HIV/AIDS by 2015 (see General Assembly resolution 55/2), but continuing criminalization directly contradicts several multilateral health policies.
Legal status
Non-negotiated soft law
Body
Special Rapporteur on the right of everyone to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health
Document type
Special Procedures' report
Means of adoption
N.A.
Topic(s)
Governance & Rule of Law
Health
Person(s) affected
All
Year
2010
Paragraph type
Other
Reference
SR Health, Report to the UNGA (2010), A/65/255, para. 16.