[NEWS] Financing Dispossession: China’s Opium Substitution Programme in Northern Burma

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By Kevin Woods & Tom Kramer

 

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Contrary to official rhetoric China’s opium crop substitution program has very little to do with providing mechanisms to decrease reliance on poppy cultivation or provide alternative livelihoods for ex-poppy growers.

This week the Transnational Institute published a comprehensive report documenting new developments at the Chinese Burmese border.They find that China’s opium crop substitution program has very little to do with providing mechanisms to decrease reliance on poppy cultivation or provide alternative livelihoods for ex-poppy growers. They call for investments related to opium substitution to be carried out in a more sustainable, transparent, accountable, and equitable fashion

You can read the whole report here or read on for the Executive Summary.

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[COMMENTARY] Drug Users and the Legal Framework: The Failure of the War on Drugs in Asia

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Thai AIDS Treatment Action Group protesters – Photo by Rico Gustav

By Karyn Kaplan

Kaplan’s electrifying essay on the human rights of drug users in Asia is excerpted from her plenary speech given at the
International Conference on AIDS in Asia/Pacific (ICAAP), Busan, South Korea, August 27, 2011 and reprinted from the Health and Human Rights Forum.

Here in Asia, home to more than half the world’s opiate users,  more than 16 million drug users and at least 6.5 million injectors, where HIV prevalence among injectors is among the highest in the world, where the HIV epidemic is largely driven by unsafe injecting practices, where less than 10% of heroin injectors are on methadone, and where injectors can access an average of just two sterile syringes per month, we lack 90% of the resources necessary to provide the
essential harm reduction services necessary for realizing the right to health. But while resources are a significant challenge, I would argue that even when we have the resources, it does not ensure access.

 

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