In Lead Up to XVIII International AIDS Conference, Scientists and Other Leaders
Call for Reform of International Drug Policy and Urge Others to Sign-on

www.viennadeclaration.com 28 JUNE 2010

28 June 2010 [Vienna, Austria] – Three leading scientific and health policy organizations today
launched a global drive for signatories to the Vienna Declaration (www.viennadeclaration.com),
a statement seeking to improve community health and safety by calling for the incorporation of
scientific evidence into illicit drug policies. Among those supporting the declaration and urging
others to sign is 2008 Nobel Laureate and International AIDS Society (IAS) Governing Council
member Prof. Françoise Barré-Sinoussi, co-discoverer of HIV.

The Vienna Declaration is the official declaration of the XVIII International AIDS Conference
(AIDS 2010), the biennial meeting of more than 20,000 HIV professionals, taking place in
Vienna, Austria from 18 to 23 July 2010 (www.aids2010.org).

“Many of us in AIDS research and care confront the devastating impacts of misguided drug
policies every day,” said AIDS 2010 Chair Dr. Julio Montaner, President of the IAS and Director
of the BC Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS. “These policies fuel the AIDS epidemic and result
in violence, increased crime rates and destabilization of entire states – yet there is no evidence
they have reduced rates of drug use or drug supply. As scientists, we are committed to raising
our collective voice to promote evidence-based approaches to illicit drug policy that start by
recognizing that addiction is a medical condition, not a crime.”

The Vienna Declaration describes the known harms of conventional “war on drugs” approaches
and states:

“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…Reorienting drug policies towards evidence-based approaches that respect,
protect and fulfill human rights has the potential to reduce harms deriving from current
policies and would allow for the redirection of the vast financial resources towards where
they are needed most: implementing and evaluating evidence-based prevention,
regulatory, treatment and harm reduction interventions.”

Outside of sub-Saharan Africa, injecting drug use accounts for approximately one in three new
cases of HIV. In some areas of rapid HIV spread, such as Eastern Europe and Central Asia,
injecting drug use is the primary cause of new HIV infections. Legal barriers to scientifically
proven prevention services such as needle programmes and opioid substitution therapy (OST)
mean hundreds of thousands of people become infected with HIV and Hepatitis C (HCV) every
year. The criminalization of people who inject drugs has also resulted in record incarceration
rates placing a massive burden on the taxpayer. HIV outbreaks have also been reported in
prisons in various settings internationally. This emphasis on criminalization produces a cycle of
disease transmission, along with broken homes and livelihoods destroyed. Yet these costs,
along with the more direct costs of the ‘war on drugs’, produce no measurable benefits.

“The current approach to drug policy is ineffective because it neglects proven and evidencebased
interventions, while pouring a massive amount of public funds and human resources into
expensive and futile enforcement measures,” said Dr. Evan Wood, founder of the International
Centre for Science in Drug Policy (ICSDP) and Clinical Associate Professor at the University of
British Columbia. “It’s time to accept the war on drugs has failed and create drug policies that
can meaningfully protect community health and safety using evidence, not ideology.”

The Vienna Declaration calls on governments and international organizations, including the
United Nations, to take a number of steps, including:
• undertake a transparent review the effectiveness of current drug policies;
• implement and evaluate a science-based public health approach to address the harms
stemming from illicit drug use;
• scale up evidence-based drug dependence treatment options;
• abolish ineffective compulsory drug treatment centres that violate the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights; and
• unequivocally endorse and scale up funding for the drug treatment and harm reduction
measures endorsed by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations.

The declaration also calls for the meaningful involvement of people who use drugs in
developing, monitoring and implementing services and policies that affect their lives.

“As a scientist, I strongly support drug policies that are based on evidence of what actually
works,” said Prof. Françoise Barré-Sinoussi, Director of the Regulation of Retroviral Infections
Unit at the Institute Pasteur, IAS Governing Council member and recipient of the 2008 Nobel
Prize for Medicine. “I join with my colleagues around the world today to sign the Vienna
Declaration in support of science-driven policies and human rights.”

The effectiveness of opioid substitution therapy (OST) and needles and syringe programmes is
well-documented, though access to such interventions is often limited where HIV is spreading
most rapidly. According to various scientific reviews conducted by WHO, the US Institutes of
Medicine and others, these programmes reduce HIV rates without increasing rates of drug use.
These cost-effective interventions also produce significant savings in future health care costs,
and help people who use drugs access health care and drug treatment. No evidence exists
demonstrating negative consequences of use of these programmes.

“Reflecting the AIDS 2010 theme of Rights Here, Right Now, the Vienna Declaration is rooted in
the belief that global drug policy must respect the human rights of people who use drugs if it is
to be at all effective,” said AIDS 2010 Local Co-Chair Dr. Brigitte Schmied, President of the
Austrian AIDS Society. “No one who is familiar with addiction would deny the negative impacts it
has on individuals, families and entire communities, but those harms do not justify human rights
violations. People addicted to illicit drugs have the right to evidence-based drug treatment, to
interventions to prevent infection, and, if they are living with HIV, to antiretroviral treatment.”

The Vienna Declaration was drafted by an international team of scientists and other experts,
many of whom will participate in AIDS 2010 next month. It was initiated by the IAS, the
International Centre for Science in Drug Policy (ICSDP), and the BC Centre for Excellence in
HIV/AIDS based in Vancouver, British Columbia.

Those wishing to sign on may visit www.viennadeclaration.com, where the full text of the
declaration, along with a list of authors, is available. The two-page declaration references 28
reports, describing the scientific evidence documenting the effectiveness of public health
approaches to drug policy and the negative consequences of approaches that criminalize drug
users.

About AIDS 2010

The XVIII International AIDS Conference (AIDS 2010) is the biennial meeting of researchers,
implementers and diverse leaders involved in the global response to HIV. It is convened by the IAS in
partnership with international, regional and local partners. Visit www.aids2010.org for more information
and to register for the conference, which is taking place from 18 to 23 July 2010 in Vienna, Austria.

International AIDS Society

The International AIDS Society is the world’s leading independent association of HIV professionals, with
14,000 members from 190 countries working at all levels of the global response to AIDS. Our members
include researchers from all disciplines, clinicians, public health and community practitioners on the
frontlines of the epidemic, as well as policy and programme planners.

International Centre for Science in Drug Policy

ICSDP aims to be a primary source for rigorous scientific evidence on illicit drug policy in order to benefit
policymakers, law enforcement, and affected communities. To this end, the ICSDP conducts original
scientific research in the form of systematic reviews, evidence-based drug policy guidelines, and research
collaborations with leading scientists and institutions across diverse continents and disciplines.

BC Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS

The BC Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS (BC-CfE) is Canada’s largest HIV/AIDS research, treatment
and education facility. The BC-CfE is based at St Paul’s Hospital, Providence Health Care, a teaching
hospital of the University of British Columbia. The BC-CfE is dedicated to improving the health of British
Columbians with HIV through developing, monitoring and disseminating comprehensive research and
treatment programs for HIV and related diseases.

MEDIA CONTACTS:

 Mahafrine Petigara

 Edelman

 Email: mahafrine.petigara@edelman.com

 Tel: +1 604 623 3007, ext. 297

 Michael Kessler

 Media Consultant, AIDS 2010

 Email: mkessler@ya.com

 Tel: +34 655 792 699

Republish