Costs by Region: China and South East Asia
Brunei, Burma, Cambodia, China, East Timor, Indonesia, Japan, Laos, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam
Related Resources
British Medical Journal: HIV Shoots Up
Strict laws on the criminalisation of drug use and drug users are fuelling the spread of HIV and other serious harms associated with the criminal market and should be reviewed, say experts.
Why the Vietnamese Don't Want to Go to Rehab
Human Rights Watch's Health and Human Rights Director describes drug treatment in South East Asia as "brutal, exploitative, and practically worthless".
Sex, drugs and HIV – let's get rational
Epidemiologist Elisabeth Pisani reveals the inconsistencies in current public policy which prevent the spread of HIV from being effectively combatted. She explains how the criminalisation of drug users is actively encouraging increased infection rates for HIV, before discussing how her research with at-risk populations demonstrates that seemingly counterintuitive measures could stall the spread of the disease.
Skin on the Cable: The Illegal Arrest, Arbitrary Detention and Torture of People Who Use Drugs in Cambodia
A 2010 Human Rights Watch report that reveals the appalling treatment of drug users under Cambodia's criminal justice system. The report documents detainees being beaten, raped, forced to donate blood, and subjected to painful physical punishments such as 'rolling like a barrel' and being chained while standing in the sun.
Where Darkness Knows No Limits: Incarceration, Ill-Treatment and Forced Labor as Drug Rehabilitation in China
This 37-page report documents how China's June 2008 Anti-Drug Law compounds the health risks of suspected illicit drug users by allowing government officials and security forces to incarcerate them for up to six years. The incarceration is without trial or judicial oversight.
Human Rights and Drug Policy: Crop Eradication
The International Harm Reduction Association considers the consequences of drug crop eradication, a practice that causes considerable environmental damage and threatens the livelihoods of indigenous farmers.
Five-Year Outcomes of the China National Free Antiretroviral Treatment Program
A report revealing the limited availability of antiretroviral treatment programs in China for injecting drug users.
Toward a Global View of Alcohol, Tobacco, Cannabis, and Cocaine Use: Findings from the WHO World Mental Health Surveys
Taken from the first 17 countries to participate in the World Health Organization’s (WHO), World Mental Health (WMH) Survey Initiative finds that drug use is not distributed evenly across the globe and is not purely related to drug policy. Stricter user-level drug policies did not correlate with lower levels of use.
Thailand: Prosecute Anti-Drugs Police Identified in Abuses
A Human Rights Watch article that reveals how police brutality and abuses – including thousands of extrajudicial killings – have characterised the Thailand government's approach to the war on drugs.
Development in a Drugs Environment: A Strategic Approach to 'Alternative Development'
A paper highlighting the overlap between drug control and development agendas. It calls for a common understanding of how development outcomes can translate into drug control achievements, and an ethos of 'doing development in a drugs environment'.
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Costs by Region
