Needle exchange usually gets a pretty bad press. So I was surprised, as I wandered by accident into the greenosphere today, to find that harm reduction models could save the world.
Colin Beavan draws a parallel between injectors and consumers. You can’t break an addiction to consumer goods any more easily than you can break [...]
I’m not a regular reader of the Mission News Network, but I couldn’t help snapping to attention when they re-drew the global HIV map: “Parts of the former Soviet Union are starting to see infection rates surpassing those of Africa,” they declared, singling out Ukraine. Last time I looked, around 1.4% of adults in Ukraine [...]
Since the mid 19th century, Ireland’s biggest exports have been brains and brawn. When the Celtic Tiger began roaring in the 1990s, the brain drain was reversed: the economic boom has sucked in people from all over the world. With them have come better food, an infusion of new music, decent plumbers and HIV.
Ireland’s Health [...]
Britain today published it’s new drug strategy (pdf here or here). It’s actually pretty sensible, but it will probably be howled at by footsoldiers on both sides of the War On Drugs. On the one hand, the government plans to cut benefits (welfare payments) for addicts who refuse to turn up to treatment programmes. That [...]
Yet another sensible voice raised against the ban on federal funding of needle exchange programmes. The Boston Globe editorial even includes the mandatory “We know it works” quote. What it doesn’t mention is that an end to the ban within the US would probably have a very important knock-on effect internationally, because it would open [...]
The capital of the United States has HIV rates higher than those of Congo and Ethiopia. A lot of those infections are among drug injectors. Many in the city were hugely relieved when a ban on funding for needle exchange programmes in DC was effectively dropped just a couple of weeks ago. The city’s mayor [...]
Some good news for drug injectors in the US: a nasal spray that costs less than US$ 10 can reverse the effect of an opiate overdose . Some even better news: programmes giving out these sprays have sprung up across the country. A programme on National Public Radio reports that these kits, which put drug [...]
One in 30 adults in Washington DC is infected with HIV, and that’s just the people we know about. That puts the capital of the United States on a par with Congo, Ethiopia and Angola.
Why these scandalously high rates, over 9 times the national average? The report (pdf file, 139 pages) from the Washington DC [...]
Recent Comments