Witch-hunt

Beginning two years ago, the US Dept of Health and Human Services began "special reviews" of all current research grants that involved harm reduction, sex and drugs, and continues its ban on funding of needle exchange. With Bush's second term, the campaign was extended to all US funded international programs that dealt with these issues and populations. And, most recently, the US has again undertaken to dominate the discourse within international organizations charged with drug control and AIDS policies – especially those of the UN. But the international harm reduction and human rights community is fighting back in several important ways, including "An Open Letter to the delegates of the Forty-eighth session of the Commission on Narcotic Drugs (CND) of the UN" prepared by a group of 334 well respected public health experts and human rights advocates, protesting U.S. pressure on the U.N. to withdraw its support from harm reduction. This editorial includes the letter and signatures as well as French, Spanish, and Russian versions of the letter as additional files.