GENEVA – The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) today signed an agreement with ICOS, an international drug policy think tank, for future collaboration on issues related to health and drug policy.

The two groups will cooperate on vital issues relating to current international drug policy and its effects on the global HIV/AIDS pandemic.

HIV/AIDS infection rates are particularly alarming in Russia, Eastern Europe and Asia, where the sharing of drug injecting equipment accounts for a very high number of new infections. According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) 2005 World Drug Report, injecting drug use causes 30% to 80% of HIV/AIDS infection in Asia. Both the IFRC and ICOS support the inclusion of simple but effective drug policy measures such as needle-exchange and methadone maintenance programmes in the international drug conventions.

Dr Massimo Barra, Vice-President of the IFRC and Director of Villa Maraini Therapeutic Community in Rome, urged a rapid change in the world’s approach to drug users if an international health disaster is to be avoided.

“Governments are not addressing the direct link between the sharing of needles for injecting drugs and the spread of blood-borne diseases such as HIV/AIDS and Hepatitis C,” said Dr Barra. “This failure to effectively respond to this problem lies with governments, and it is having dramatic consequences on public health. We are facing one of the biggest epidemics of all time, yet the sharing of contaminated needles continues to fuel the transmission of the world’s deadliest virus.”

Emmanuel Reinert, Executive Director of ICOS added that it is every government’s responsibility to accept that there is an urgent need for pragmatic, health-oriented drug policies.

“Resistance to scientific evidence is hindering progress,” said Reinert. “Simple policy measures such as needle exchange could avoid a global AIDS pandemic, but these are not being implemented for purely ideological reasons. Our principle motivation should be to reduce suffering and save lives.”

In a 2003 report on harm reduction related to injecting drug use, the IFRC calls on the international community to be “guided by the Light of Science, not by the darkness of ignorance and fear.” The report states the need for a more humanitarian treatment of drug users, advocating a wide range of prevention programmes, including access to sterile injecting equipment.

In the previous year, ICOS commissioned the British Institute of International and Comparative Law to draw up a Draft International Treaty for Drug Policies: Promoting Public Health Policies, with a foreword by Dr Barra. The Draft International Treaty establishes the international legal foundations for the promotion of innovative public health responses to drug use such as clean needle exchanges or substitution programmes.

“ICOS is playing an important role in advocating for a more humanitarian drug policy,” said Dr Barra.

Dr Barra also stressed the importance of this new alliance, stating that “it is crucial to unify forces because the priority of both the IFRC and ICOS is to help the vulnerable, regardless of circumstances and without judgement. Drug users are among the most vulnerable people in society.”

In 2008, the United Nations and policy makers around the world will review current international drug policy. This will be an opportunity to make new choices and to base the international drug control system on new humanitarian principles.

The new collaboration between the IFRC and ICOS is an example of Civil Society preparing so that this goal can be achieved in 2008. While the two signatory parties remain independent in their reciprocal fields of action, exchange of expertise on an international level is seen as an important step in fulfilling their aims.