Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2003. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
Bangkok Post - Thursday 16 October 2003
Aphaluck Bhatiasevi
Nafis Sadik said the infection rate among injecting drug users had risen 25%, from 40% to 50%, since the disease was discovered in 1984. Research in Bangkok also showed the infection rate among gay men had reached 17%.
Dr Sadik said she did not completely understand the government's war on drugs, but other countries' experiences indicated drug suppression only increased the price and pushed drug use further underground.
"It doesn't stop the problem, it seems to drive the prices of drugs up and sometimes increases the crime rate," she said.
A more comprehensive programme was needed to deal with the problem. It was necessary to look at why people were using drugs. Since HIV and injecting drug use were inter-related, political leaders should look at drug use as a health and psychological problem instead of viewing it only as a crime.
"If you try to lock users up, it doesn't change their behaviour. Needles are a source of infection and experience in countries successful in dealing with injecting drug users has shown that they have to be pragmatic," she said.
Needle exchange programmes should be supported by the state, even though drug use was against the law, because it could be an important tool in preventing the spread of HIV.
Drug users, like other groups, marry and have children, which meant that if nothing was done to prevent them getting HIV they could transfer the virus to their wives and children.
Meanwhile, administrators of the Global Fund on Aids, Tuberculosis and Malaria began a three-day meeting in Chiang Mai yesterday. They appeared likely to drop proposals made on harm reduction programmes because they were perceived as being against the current political atmosphere of the country.
Karen Kaplan, the international advocacy coordinator of the Thai Aids Treatment Action Group, said they had been informed that although the country's coordinating mechanism, which is responsible for screening the proposals, supported the three projects proposed on harm reduction, there could be obstacles in receiving direct funding because of the political situation.
Since the launch of the war on drugs, any form of support of drug use, including harm reduction, was perceived as a crime by law enforcers, she said.
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