XV International AIDS Conference:

HIV RATE AMONG DRUG USERS STILL NEAR 50%

Despite some remarkable successes in driving down the overall HIV
infection rate, it is undeniable that Thailand has at times failed to
control the epidemic's spread among injecting drug users.

The infection rate among these users has been hovering as high as over
50 per cent in spite of the government's aggressive war on drugs over
the past couple of years.

One reason may be because antidrug campaigns, mainly targeted at
wiping out methamphetamines, have had the adverse affect of driving
addicts to switch to injection drugs such as heroin.

The Narcotics Control Board conceded the number of intravenous drug
users had slightly increased as a result of the drug war.

"It was totally wrong the way the government forced drug users to
completely quit via the boot camp rehabilitation programme provided by
the Army, which does not specialise in substance abuse rehabilitation,"
said Paisarn Tanud of the Thai Drug Users Network.

"The drug problem is like [the problem of teenage casual] sex...it never
ever works to simply make them say no," he said, adding that such
campaigns simply drive addicts underground.

The best way to reach out to these populations is by avoiding driving
them under ground, said Kathleen Cravero, deputy executive director of
the United Nations Programme on HIV/Aids.

This method, known as the harm reduction approach, has proven
successful in many countries fighting both drug abuse and HIV spread,
said Paisarn.

The government has said many times Thailand will initiate
harmreduction programmes to control HIV among injecting drug users,
but these words have never been translated into action, wrote Dr Alex
Wodex, the former president of the International Harm Reduction
Association, in an email to The Nation.

The government's recent commitment to harmreduction programmes would
be judged by the outcome of such projects, he said.

Paisarn said the decision to adopt harm reduction measures in Thailand
was made recently as a result of persistent pressure from the United
Nations coinciding with next week's International Aids Conference.