Drug_!!!

Why we turn our backs on drug addicts at our peril

Man injecting drugs. Photograph: Mykel Nicolaou/Rex Features

Nobody loves a junkie. In most parts of the world, drug addicts are at the bottom of the pile. If there is money for health, it's likely they will be the last to get any of it.
And that holds true for HIV, even though, outside of Africa, 30% of infections are linked to injecting drug users. And in Russia, home to the fastest-growing HIV epidemic in the world, most of the spread has been through shared needles. There is evidence of a change, though. Not long ago, 80% of new HIV infections in Russia were in (mostly male) drug users. Now it's 60%, because it is spreading so fast among the women they sleep with.
Yet according to s forthcoming presentation by Professor Gerry Stimson, executive director of the International Harm Reduction Association, globally just three US cents a day is spent per injecting drug user in low and middle-income countries on measures to prevent the spread of HIV. That's about $160 million a year. It's somewhat less than the UNAIDS estimate of what is needed, which was over $3 billion in 2010.