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I'm speaking here today, on behalf
of the International Network of Poeple who Use Drugs (INPUD).
We're here to say that the war on drugs, ten years old, has failed completely.
We are saying, that it is time to put public health first,
to recognize that the only science-based policy on drugs
is harm reduction, needle exchange,
*** subsitution therapies, and involving drug users for change.
We are here today, ready to negotiate the peace!
INPUD is a global network of people who use drugs.
We are organized around the
desire to protect the health of people who use drugs
and to defend their rights, or our rights, as a community.
Till now, I have questions from people who say, "It's so good of you that you quit."
And they get a little taken aback when we say, "You know, we haven't quit."
I would like to change the state of mind of drug users themselves,
becuase, a lot of them think that, "Well I'm a junkie ..."
"I don't deserve a better life."
We should really think about how to make these people feel like human beings.
In the quest for their rights, the quest for a normal life, for their health,
and for nondiscrimination.
A drug user is also a person with responsibilities.
A father, a child, or a brother, who works and pays taxes,
who has his or her own priorities in life.
This is universal.
These drug users should come out and say:
"I use drugs, and I am an equal citizen,"
"with my rights and duties."
We are today sick our people being abused,
being murdered, being tortured,
being offered restricted healthcare,
being thrown out of housing,
having their children taken away from them.
It is time for change.
On the first of November, on the International Drug User's Day
We made an action ...
Protest for the memory of people who died of drugs at the Federal Drug Control Service (FDCS) in Moscow on November 1, 2009
And I know that there were people in Australia who also made an action,
and people knew that they were part of a big community,
and it made them feel better, stronger you know.
It made them feel more asured of what they are doing and why they are doing this.
I've been an injecting drug user for 37 years.
INPUD is one of the most important things
in my life to me, at this stage.
For 20 years, we've been trying to get an international drugs users movement happening,
and until the internet, and things like that,
it was impossible to keep us connected.
We can reinforce each other. We can reinvigorate each other
We can just help each other.
INPUD gives us a global voice.
There are some situations where we need global pressure
to be brought to a region.
INPUD has a particular role
to interface with the global architecture,
to talk to the UN, to the Global Fund,
and other partners involved in international development.
Most of the UN and WHO agencies,
and also some governments in Asia,
now welcome and encourage the participation of drug users.
We have some very diplomatic successes
and we now have resolutions passed both at UNIADS PCB,
the Program Coordinating Board,
and also at the Commission on Narcotic Drugs,
the managing body of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime.
We call on the United Nations,
to stand for its founding principles of human rights.
We cannot have a drug control program
that breaches the very fundamental principles on which the United Nations was founded.
It is time to put human rights first,
and to end the war on drugs,
and to give human rights to my community.
If you are serious about seeing a global network for people who use drugs,
don't stand on the sidelines waiting to see if we are successful.
We have shown ourselves to be effective potential partners.
Now give us the resources to help us live out that reality.
Transcribed and Subtitled by Hunter Holliman