 We came here to the Russian Embassy to commemorate those who passed away due to the insane and sinister drug war. My country in the past four years has had over 40,000 deaths, including the lives of many young people. The current strategy as shown in my country but as also shown in Russia and as also shown in most countries around the world has not deterred young people from using drugs or consuming drugs. Russia is maybe the most obvious example that the war on drugs is a failure. Russia is experiencing the fastest growing HIV epidemic basically among injecting drug users in the world. There are many people who are co-infected with TB and they don't get real effective treatment neither for their drug addiction nor for TB or HIV. The Russians want to persuade the United Nations Security Council and NATO to pursue a failed policy of eradication in Afghanistan which will further impoverish the lives of people who are also already suffering. The Russian government is doing this I believe in a way to divert attention away from their own problems and their own failed policies in Russia where methadone is not allowed and legal exchanges are also prevented. I come from a country that still practices the death sentence for traffickers and drug users. More than that, I have a brother who has been struggling with heroin use for the past eight years and it's been a really really long journey for the entire family and for people around that loves him. And three months ago my brother started the methadone program and for the first time in his life he's able to be proud of himself. I'm here today to urge Russian government to give all the drug users a chance to be proud of themselves and to implement the methadone program in the country. I'm an attorney from the US, a country where we have the highest incarceration rate in the world. And I'm here today because I want to commemorate not just those that we've lost to death in the drug war but those who we have lost, our brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers, and those who have lost friends to lives of incarceration. In a country where our last three presidents have been admitted to drug use and where most of these people or very many of these people were members of a minority group. I come here with such sadness and with such rage that we still have these vigils every year and that so many lives continue to be lost because of terrible drug policies, lack of humanity, simple things like some of the signs, access to syringes, access to medicines. And it's heartbreaking. Let these demonstrations, which is not the only one going on in the world, there are several cities also doing it, to be a place for putting together the courage and the inspiration as to move ahead and so that their lives have not ended in vain but that we go on pushing not only the government of Russia but also governments all around the world to change their strategies.