XV INTERNATIONAL AIDS CONFERENCE: DRUG WAR THWARTS HIV BATTLE

Thailand's successful fight against HIV/Aids in the early 1990s, which has
often earned the Kingdom international praise, has been undermined by a
climate of fear in the wake of the government's war on drugs that has
driven injecting drug users underground, Human Right Watch said on Monday.

The war, launched in February of last year, has caused the deaths of more
than 2,000 people and drove countless drug users into hiding and away from
what few services exist to protect them from HIV, said Joanne Csete,
director of HIV/Aids programmes.

The number of injecting drug users is increasing. Between 70 and 80 per
cent of an estimated 274,000 heroin users currently fuel their addictions
via syringes, according to a Human Rights Watch report. The report stated
that drug users would account for 30 per cent of new HIV infections by 2005.

The Kingdom enjoys an international reputation as a "best practice" model
in the fight against Aids largely due to its "100 per cent condom" campaign
in the 1990s.

But with respect to drug users, the government has rejected similarly
progressive HIV prevention programmes in favour of arbitrary arrests, mass
incarcerations and forced drug treatments, said Jonathan Cohen, a Human
Rights Watch researcher.

Cohen said his organisation had documented cases of drug users and
traffickers becoming targets of state-sponsored killings and mistreatment,
instead of being treated as victims or patients.

Many users were coerced into treatment during the war out of fear of
arrest, while those who enrolled were given substandard treatment, often
consisting of military-style drills in camps, he said.

"You cannot on the one hand say the people who use drugs are people who
have a medical problem who need treatment and medical attention and on the
other hand, command violence against people associated with the drug
trade," he said. "It creates a climate of fear that undermines any efforts
to deliver comprehensive medical services to people who use drugs, and the
government cannot have it both ways."