 Good afternoon everyone, and thank you for giving up your lunch break. Welcome to the International Network of People Who Use Drugs and UN Strategic Coordination Group on Drug Use HIV, Health and Human Rights Site event called Navigating Tensions and Contradictions, addressing human rights challenges related to the lack of and the unequal access to treatment and harm reduction. So we have a long list of co-sponsors. I won't name them all, but very much appreciate the co-sponsorship, and the list includes regional and national community-led networks, civil society, member states, and UN agencies. And so longest list we've had as co-sponsors of an event led by Drug Use-led Networks at the CND. So it's really incredible to see this mobilization of support. So this site event is part of a series that discusses the seven key topics outlined in the report on human rights challenges in addressing and countering the world drug problem released by OHCHR in August 2023. Ours is focused on the challenge of harm reduction or challenge of access to harm reduction and treatment. We've headlined our site event calling out the tensions and contradictions between human rights and drug policies, which, as people who use drugs, we find ourselves caught in the middle and are forced to navigate these tensions along with many others. In this site event, we'll hear from a range of speakers on how they, in their own ways, work in spite of the tensions and contradictions. But before that, I'm really pleased to pass the floor to Ambassador Raphael Nagali from Switzerland, who's a strong champion of equity in human rights. Ambassador, you have the floor. Thank you very much, Judy, and welcome everybody. It's a pleasure and the privilege to address you here at the opening of our site event, which draws up on a very important topic, which is the equitable access to treatment and to harm reduction. So this one welcomes the OHCHR report on human rights challenges in addressing and countering all aspects of the world's drug situation and its recommendations. Switzerland has adopted harm reduction decades ago. Harm reduction services remain a pillar of our approach until today. The reasons why this happened is in the Swiss history. In the 90s, we faced a very dire heroin crisis in Switzerland. People were dying from overdoses, but also from AIDS and hepatitis. It was this moment when Switzerland changed its approach, which mainly focused on repression until then, and considered it from a health perspective. This has led to the introduction of a large number of harm reduction services and measures. For instance, Switzerland was in 1991, one of the first countries to offer supervised consumption rooms, just to take the drug addicts away from the street, and to ensure equitable access to harm reduction also in prison settings. Services that are still in use today. The results of this approach after 30 years are quite positive. We have a very low HIV rate. We have a very low hepatitis rate. We have significantly reduced mortality, and social inclusion and the decrease of stigmatization has clearly advanced. Drug policies are always a kind of trial and error, and of adapting to the real situation. The title of our today's event is navigating and contradictions. That's where we are in. In these contradictions, the report of the EUHCHR on human rights serves as a very important guidance that helps us to steer through these hard choices to be taken and through these contradictions. Switzerland has decided to put people at the centre, human rights at the centre of its drug policies, to treat people who use drugs and to treat them as equal citizens. This approach has brought us tangible results in saving many lives, and we stay committed to this approach. We are happy to share experiences with countries that are interested and we encourage all member states to get inspired by such examples when formulating their own policies. Thank you very much. Thank you very much, Ambassador. In Switzerland, of course, as you mentioned, is a real model that people who use drugs hold up. So, next, we have a presentation from Monica Chapalger. She's the expert on drug use and HIV from UNODC HIV AIDS section, and also civil society lead, and she'll be sharing some of the work of this section and department on harm reduction. Also, I just want to mention it's her birthday today, so if you want to take her a sign off to the event, you wish her a happy birthday. Thank you very much, Judy. So, thank you very much, Ambassador, for your opening remarks. We saw also a very inspiring presentation from Switzerland in the high level event on HIV, about the interventions that were mentioned. So, let me tell you about UNODC work on HIV. Can we have the next slide, please? So, we have two main pillars in our work on HIV. One is HIV prevention, treatment care, and support among people who use drugs. And the other one, it's the same, HIV prevention, treatment care, and support for people in prisons and closed settings. And as guiding documents for what we are implementing is, of course, the UNODC strategy, but also the global AIDS strategy, the UNGA document on the outcome document on drugs, the ministerial declaration that we were talking so much these days, and the political declaration on AIDS from 2001. And of course, you see the SDGs that are guiding our work. Next slide. So, about the global situation, what Judy mentioned before, World Drug Report estimates that there are 13.2 million people who are injecting drugs worldwide. And the data that was published last year shows that there is an 18% increase from the last year estimation. The next slide. Among these 13.2 million, 1.6 million people are estimated to be living with HIV. And you can see here on the distribution on the maps. In the next slide, we will see also that more than half of them are living with hepatitis C. So you see the data that UNAs published last year show that there is a very large percentage of new HIV cases among people who inject drugs. And if you think globally, this is 13.2 million, sounds a large number. But in the global context, in the total global population, this is not, and it shouldn't be a group of the people who will provide about between 7% to 10% of the new HIV cases in the last estimations. So let's move to the next slide. And as I said, it shouldn't be like this because we have very well-defined interventions not from now. But UN agreed on these interventions from 2009 when we first time came together, WHO, UNODC, UNAs to publish the target setting guide describing the nine interventions. Then we added the overdose prevention as the 10 intervention. And then we repackaged this intervention in the two years ago in the consolidated guidelines of WHO. And I think we have in the next slide the way the interventions are defined now essential for impact, meaning enabling intervention, health intervention, and here a harm reduction that is so much discussed this year in resolutions and in meetings, is NITILAN's range program opioid agonist therapy and naloxone for overdose management. And then we have all the others and then additional health interventions for broader health. And the next slide, you'll see that also we have very clear defined interventions for preventing HIV and hepatitis in closed settings because this group of population also a small percentage of the global population, 11.2 million in and out of prison every year, are also a group where the HIV prevalence is very high. In the next slide, you'll see the reason why we have still so many new cases of HIV and hepatitis among people who use drugs and also in prisons. You see out of 190, if I'm not wrong, countries that reported injecting drug use, only 95 countries have at least one needle and syringe program, only 90 countries, so less than half have one site of opioid agonist therapy. And when we look at the prison, the situation, it's even worse. 10 countries have at least one needle and syringe program in prison and 59 countries have opioid agonist therapy. So we're talking about interventions that are very, very well defined. Opioid agonist medication is on the list of essential medications of WHO for many years and still half of the countries have interventions in the community and of handful in prison. And you see there the distribution on the map. In the next slide, I try to summarize the major barriers. And of course, we talk about the criminalization of people who use drugs, who is increasing the number of people who are incarcerated, and it's also deterring people from accessing services. And then the intersecting forms of stigma and discrimination experienced by people who use drugs. When they access health services, when they are trying to access legal services or education or employment or other social services, or when they are interacting with law enforcement. Then the lack of policies and programs that can effectively increase the access to opioids for people and for medical use for people who use drugs. Lack of training and awareness of health personnel and service provider, limited financial resources. And here I have to mention again what was said many times during these weeks is that for harm reduction services, only 5% of the financial need is met. We have a 95% financial gap for implementing harm reduction services. So this is why it's very difficult to bring these programs to the scale. And to meet the targets that were agreed to have at least 50% of the people who need opioid agonist therapy on treatment to see a change, to see an impact. And of course, there are cultural attitudes that are different from one country to another, from one region to another. In the next slide, I will talk a little bit about what the HIV program is doing. Like His Excellency Ambassador mentioned, we're also trying to support countries to put people at the center to provide all the support that we can to the member states to increase access to health, to rights, and to the well-being of the people who use drugs and people in prisons. So we look not only at people who use opioids, but also at people who use stimulant drugs. And actually, this was an idea that was generated in our civil society group and they raised the issue of the high prevalence of HIV and hepatitis among people who are not injecting, who are using stimulants. And we produced a guidance and we described eight interventions. And then in the next slide, you will see that, you know, we have a capacity building program and we are providing trainings in our high priority countries. But again, you see, there are many countries where this training is needed and these interventions are needed. But again, with the lack of resources, so far, the map is still gray. If we move to the next slide, I will also talk briefly about our work on opioid agonist therapy, because we provided guidance to support countries to start or scale up opioid agonist therapy services. But also, we tried to build from the lessons that we learned during the COVID, because one unexpected good consequences of the lockdowns was that there was a scale up of take home opioids in many countries that were reluctant. And we put in one of our publications, the blue one, the information that we received from our high priority country or what happened during the lockdown and how did it work with the take home opioid agonist therapy. And surprisingly, I mean, not surprisingly for us, but surprisingly for those who were opposing, these services were implemented very well. And there were no overdose deaths and no misuse of the high quantities of methadone or buprenorphine that was provided for people to have for two weeks or up to three months. In the next slide, I'll talk very briefly, because we had yesterday a side event about this about our interventions to support women, to address the needs of women who use drugs and women in prison and how we tailored the interventions to meet the, to advise on how to tailor the interventions to meet the needs of women. And the next is our working in prisons and how we are trying to scale up access to treatment and also to support countries to improve the prison conditions. And in the next slide, it's an example of our work with civil society and community-led organization. I've mentioned this in many, many of our, I mean, all the interventions that you saw here were the result of our discussions and the advice that we received from our colleagues from the civil society. It's called the UNODC Civil Society Group on Drug Use and HIV. And in the next slide, I try to summarize some recommendations for the way forward. I leave you with this, but I'm sure that the speakers that are coming now will expand more and will have more and better ideas. Thank you. Thank you so much, Monica. And I think a, you know, key message was we know what works. I think the question is, why are we not there yet? I know you outlined some of the barriers in your presentation. I'll just turn to the first speaker on our panelists just to tease some of those out. So she is Angela McBride, the Executive Director of the South African Network of People Use Drugs, who's a long, many years background as a peer educator and coordinator. So Angela, from the perspective of People Use Drugs, what are the primary reasons for why we are so behind when it comes to harm reduction and treatment? Thanks, Judy. So, hi everyone. And I'm really grateful to be here today, and I'm going to try and summarize this as much as possible. And I think ultimately in South Africa, we've noticed that the biggest challenge, and it's a challenge that we find a lot of the time when it comes to harm reduction and addressing the needs of the community, is the lack of funding, or at least in some cases in South Africa, the supply is not meeting the demand. Whether it's through informal or formal consultations, observations through community monitoring that's been happening, the community is frustrated that there isn't enough access to OAT, there isn't enough access to needles and syringes. And unfortunately, this is frustrating within itself. And the service providers, a lot of the time are the ones who are blamed for this from the community's perspective, but it is deeper than that. It runs deeper than that because budgets are the restriction. If we don't have government buy-in, if we don't have sufficient funding coming in to procure needles and syringes to procure methadone, or at least to subsidize some of these costs, it is impacting our movement forward. And with this said, we know in South Africa that there are governments and municipalities that are providing services and are covering harm reduction commodities. So it is possible. However, it takes a lot of advocacy for that. It takes a lot of support. And through institutions, advocates, and advocacy, we can look at how we can push for more funding, more buy-in from our governments. But not only do we have the challenge of not enough supply to meet the demand, but we've also started to notice the lack of a living wage for peer educators. And I want to spend time speaking about that because I think we all hear enough about there, we need more needles, we need more needles, which is vital. We do need more needles, we need more OAT, we need more harm reduction commodities for other people who are using drugs and not necessarily just injecting drugs. But we also need to be considering the experts. Peer educators are the ones who are going out and providing the needles and syringes. Peer educators are the ones who are going out and doing HIV testing and counseling. They are doing the hardest work. You're seeing the people you love, you're seeing your friends, having to tell someone you care about, you now have hepatitis. That is the harsh reality in South Africa. But the peers, the people who are doing the hardest work, not sitting in offices, not sitting in air-cond rooms, but actually going out and doing the physical work, they're getting paid nothing. And not literally nothing, but pretty much almost nothing. And there is no subsidization. Housing is not being subsidized. Methadone is hardly subsidized because there isn't enough money for methadone as is. And this is a massive problem because you've got institutions and organizations that receive large amounts of funding for harm reduction in South Africa. And they're not consulting with communities. They're not bringing their own peers into, I'm sorry I get quite emotional about this, but they're not bringing their own peers into the room to discuss their budgets. They're not having the peer-educated look at the budget and say, hold on, you haven't included an increase for me in the next three years. What about inflation? It's not being done. But yes, unfortunately, there are cases and spaces where the increases are considered for management. The increases are considered for rental or the likes of that. But the people who are doing the most work, the hardest work, the real work, they're not being paid a livable wage. And that is a massive problem. But it can be addressed. Include us in the conversations. When it comes to budget, as funders and donors, it is your responsibility to also hold that the person you are funding or the organization you're funding accountable to say, where has your community consultation come in? Have you consulted with the people that are doing the greatest amounts of work? And the most important work? So we need to be looking at it holistically. It's not just the peer holding the service provider accountable or the service provider holding the funder accountable for money. It's not about that. It's about ensuring that the people that are doing the work are getting paid a livable wage. Because ultimately, if you're hiring a peer, that means you're hiring a person who uses drugs. That means you are hiring someone who you're meant to be serving. And if the salary or the wage does not reflect harm reduction, reducing harm, then how can we say we're providing a harm reduction intervention? If someone is unable to afford rents, unable to afford methadone themselves, unable to afford meals, or if they receive a small amount of wage, they can only cover those. Where is the money for emergencies? Where is the money if they have children? Where is the money if they want to buy shoes or buy uniforms or buy a microwave? It is not there because there is not enough budget taken into account. So long story short, yes, there is a need for more harm reduction commodities. There is a need for more people who use drugs interventions like treatment for more hepatitis, safe stimulant packs and the likes. But there also needs to be proper consultation with peer educators and ensuring that there is a minimum wage provided. We cannot be sitting in a country and saying, oh, this is the minimum wage overall for a country when we don't have a minimum wage for harm reduction and peer educators as well. There needs to be a livable wage. And if not, there needs to be a subsidization. Either housing be made available or medication be made available. But we cannot be working forward and putting the people who are doing the work, the people who we are actually meant to be serving. We cannot be making them suffer because it contradicts the entire concept of harm reduction. Thank you. Thank you so much, Angela, for that really, really strong and clear message that it's not only the what, but also the how and the need to put peer workers first and make sure they can survive. And I think it's a sad state of affairs that we have to say that. But thank you for sharing that. So next we have Jindrick Vorbaril, his national drug coordinator of Czechia, who has worked on community-based services and drug strategies, both nationally and globally. So question, the panel question is, so Czechia's drug policy reform plans were referenced in the positive development section of the OHCHR report. Can you share more about the plans, developments, and what made this opportunity for change possible? Thank you, Judy. The Czech Republic check here, so I use Czech Republic, yes, we use both. Who are those Czech Czechs teaching anybody from the West about human rights? This is a question that I was asked seriously when we introduced the document that we wanted to put through our presidency when we said we put human rights in the center of drug policy. And several countries came and asked this question, who are you to teach anybody about human rights? My colleagues reacted saying, no, no, we don't want to teach anybody, we want to talk, we want to speak openly that it's necessary to put it in the center. But let me tell you a few things about it. When I started helping my friends from the streets in the 80s, still behind the iron curtain, just making them a soup and giving them a one or two night sleep in my house, I was often interrogated by the Czech branch of KGB because in the happy Stalinist communism style of communism, people who use drugs were perceived as infected by the Western immorality and the drugs, this is true, the drugs to our society were implanted and put by CIA. But it must, we might sound like a joke today and it sounds funny to me today, but at that time it was not a joke. I was waiting every day just because voluntarily I was helping people from the streets, that I will end up in prison or something worse. And when the revolution came, 1989, there was a revolution of human rights, we just wanted freedom. That was the revolution, 1989, we were not fighting for having a better economy or a capitalist society, but we wanted freedom. So at that time I remember I was 23, 24, I had to make a conscious decision to stand in against the people with the guns pointing at us and we had bare hands that human rights is worse of losing maybe life. So when we talk about human rights and when we talk about policy, any kind of policy such as drug policy and we smell the smell of totalitarian order behind it, we are very sensitive people to that. So this is why we said as human rights should be the core of everything and it should be core of the drugs policy. Sorry for preaching, but I was thinking that I have to mention that. It's still in me, I have to say still, still our presidency because for me sometimes the conversations that we had during the presidency, even though the document exists and it's compromised, it exists, you can find it on maybe, you can find it on the pages of the European Commission. It's very difficult to find it there if you need, I will send it to you, but it's like kind of forgotten. So I think it's important. Now if we talk about what's happening in the Czech Republic, you know that we decriminalize in the 90s and then we reversed it back 2003, I think 2004. We decriminalized possession of every kind of drugs for personal use. It was like two grams of heroin, two grams of ketamine, 10 grams of cannabis. It was not a criminal sanction, but then we reversed it back and then the government decided to put a study to see what reverse dust and it showed that it was worse than before. So then 2010 we came back, the decriminalization is the solution. We are a country with less than 1% of HIV among injecting drug users. We still have 12%, still less than other countries, but still 12% of hep C among injecting drug users. Well, we still believe we can eliminate that and we work hard on elimination. But what happens and how can you achieve it? How can we achieve it? It's not only that you have needle exchange programs, but you need to start with decriminalization because if people are stigmatized, it's difficult to invite the hidden population, as we call it, to come to the service, to cooperate, to bring them early, not when they are homeless, when they are in big trouble, but early on so they can come because they don't have to be afraid. I think what helped as well 2013 that we decided not only that our strategy is no longer going to be abstinence-based strategy but harm reduction-based strategy, not only harm reduction services but harm reduction legislation, harm reduction, all kind of philosophy behind what we do because, yes, people who don't use drugs, there is no harms attached or risks attached, but people use drugs. What helped a lot, I think, was that we integrated policies at that time with legal drugs and said, well, we have to look at it at one thing. It's all the same behavior. People want to use some substances or products, including gambling, for example, for some reasons. And it's still the same thing, legal or illegal. And what we can actually offer, what we can actually do is reduce, introduce policies, include in legislation that will minimize harms and risks. Today we have a very spread range of services. I think we are one of the five countries, I have to go, I know, I have to finish. We are one of the five countries that reaches the target of WHO with harm reduction services, but as I say, it's not only that, it starts with whole philosophy. So I think we need to make the steps further. And the current government decided, and it's in government program and it's in government action plan, we will regulate substances according to their risks, whether they are today illegal or today illegal. We want to evaluate the risks and start regulating because we have all the evidence that regulation is actually much better in many ways from the preventative point of view than prohibition. I think this is a step that we need to make. I know it's not easy to hear and it's not easy to speak about it in this building, but it's necessary at least to start studying, to put facts on the table, to start having open discussion, not only preaching to the converted, but it has to be in wider range. Otherwise we will be here in five years again saying again HIV spread in hepatitis C could have been eliminated long time ago, but it's still there, et cetera, et cetera. Thank you so much. I'm going to use the We Need Revolution in Human Rights and Drug Policy for my future advocacy. So next up we have Pilani Narayanan, Director of the Drug Policy Program of the Malaysia AIDS Foundation and SKPA2, Health Equity Matters, who's a senior public health and harm reduction specialist. So Pilani, in Malaysia efforts toward drug policy reform are underway. Can you share more on how successful drug policy reform will lead to equitable access? Thank you, Judy. Happy birthday, Monica. Hello, everybody else. The efforts towards drug policy reform in Malaysia has gained significant momentum in the last couple of years. The policy we are advocating for and working towards is decriminalization of drugs for use and personal possession. There is an increasing level of support among both government and non-government agency. We are approaching decriminalization policies from various angles, including prison overcrowding, impact on women and children, public health and economic costs, including enforcement, incarceration versus treatment. However, it's not without its challenges, but due to time constraints, I'll stick to the challenges around treatment issues only. You see, Malaysia successfully implemented a national harm reduction program in 2005 that brought the epidemic or the infection among people who use drugs by approximately 80% since then. We've had a high coverage of methadone and NSP programs in Malaysia. In the last several years, heroin use and injecting has reduced drastically, and ATS use has increased significantly. Now, HIV among people who use drugs is no longer a pressing issue for many stakeholders, and this makes advocacy for drug policy change through HIV a difficult one. The harms associated with drug use at the moment are violence, mental health, family disruptions, incarceration, and what are the harm reduction measures to prevent violence, mental health, incarceration. Treatments such as opioid substitution treatment is not available for ATS use and services for mental health are few and far between. Traditional harm reduction services are closing due to the change of drug type. People also question our investment in harm reduction now and drug policy now that we have HIV levels that are low. People who use drugs, including gay men and transgender people who engage in chem sex, have very little contact with harm reduction services or treatment facilities. In the name of preventing crime and violence, people who use drugs continue to be incarcerated or sent to mandatory drug rehabs. So we have to ask ourselves and we do. We have saved thousands of lives through our harm reduction program and preventing HIV is saving lives enough. Is that where our moral and public health obligation ends? Is a life saved good enough if that life is being incarcerated 52 times before they reach the age of 40 as it happened to Citi, a woman who uses drugs in Kuala Lumpur. Citi is a reminder that successful harm reduction programs alone is not going to make people who use drugs treated with respect, dignity, or human rights. We need drug policy to ensure that all the gains we make in harm reduction is sustained. We need to ensure that all harm reduction program guidance includes promotion of drug policy reform. Or as my previous speaker said, harm reduction legislation. The second challenge is defining treatment and how we scale up treatment for people who need it. We don't believe and buy into the blanket statement that all people who use drugs need treatment. And so it has been critical for us to try and build on the understanding that many people who use drug live productive lives. Problems arising from drug use during this time may need psychosocial assistance and counseling, but nothing more. A young man or a woman who is experimenting with marijuana does not need prison sentence alongside serious criminals in prison. But approximately 20% of people, but approximately 20% of people do develop dependency depending on the drug and will need treatment and support. For those who need treatment, the challenge is developing treatment modalities and that have evidence-based and are effective, not mandatory rehabilitation. Often treatment and rehabilitation is used interchangeably, very unfortunately. There are evidence for community-based treatments such as therapeutic communities, but not for rehabilitation centers that spring up overnight in response to government crackdown and use modalities that include spraying jet water on people going through withdrawal and call it water therapy or by chaining people who use drugs to beds, which happens across Asia. And what happens when we don't have enough treatment facilities? Where would people who are diverted from prisons to go? Will we start recriminalizing such as Oregon did in the U.S.? So our decriminalization effort focuses not just on changing the laws, but making sure there are adequate treatment, evidence-based treatment facilities for people who use drugs at different phases of the spectrum of drug use. So to answer your question, Judy, on how decriminalization will lead to equitable treatment and harm reduction. Number one, decriminalization will increase treatment-seeking behavior. When people feel safe and less fearful of being incarcerated, people who need assistance will come forward for treatment. Decriminalization will hopefully lead to better understanding of treatment and who needs it. Distinguishing the various reasons why people use is a start. Accepting that treatment is better than treating people as animals in cages through incarceration will hopefully follow. Decriminalization will hopefully increase funding for other treatment modalities, including community-based treatment. This is never guaranteed, of course. And as I mentioned earlier, needs to be crafted through careful advocacy strategy, particularly as we're talking about savings from law enforcement and incarceration to fund treatment. Now, changing this archaic punitive and repressive drug policies that has served to benefit a few while harming so many is not an easy task and will require coordination from all stakeholders, including anti-narcotics board, ministries of health, community-based treatment, religious organization. But such as the complexity of drug use and magnitude of complexity of drug use and drug dependence that we cannot just seek a simple answer or a quick fix. So, by decriminalizing drug use for personal use and possession, we hope that our government will recognize that people are often on a spectrum of drug use, that we need different treatment for different people who use drugs, that not all people who use drugs need treatment and certainly not always rehab, that treatment cannot be mandatory or forced, that treatment must be rooted in evidence and respect for human rights. We believe that people who use drugs cannot be punished for the societies and government's failings to prevent drugs from being produced, trafficked, or sold. Drug policies that focuses on punishing and incarcerating people who use is hypocritical and corrupt. Ladies and gentlemen, we must set out to change that. Thank you. Thank you very much, Polani. So, next we have Professor Alan Miller, chair of the National Collaborative, the National Mission on Drugs, and a professor of practice in human rights law. So, Professor Alan Miller, Scotland has been working on a human rights bill related to people who use drugs. Can you tell us why it is so important to build this normative framework and how it can be replicated? Thanks very much to you, Judy, and Ambassador and all the co-sponsors, and it's a privilege to be on this panel. Thanks very much indeed. So, there's two questions in there, Judy, and I think it's the same answer to both. It's a power of a human rights-based approach, both in its importance and necessity as a normative framework, and also in how it can be replicated elsewhere, in fact everywhere else, no matter the different context in which we all live and work in. Let me just say initially a few words about what we're on a path to doing in Scotland with the National Mission on Drugs, and you will see a video message from the Scottish Government Minister for Drugs and Alcohol Policy just near the conclusion of this side event, but essentially we're moving from what has been a criminal justice approach towards a public health and human rights-based approach towards drugs and alcohol, and we have just launched for public consultation a draft charter of rights for people affected by substance use. This draft charter is developed by the National Collaborative through a public participatory process. It's centered around the equal right of everyone to the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health, and this is a right that's been brought into our national law through the forthcoming Scottish Human Rights Bill, which will be introduced to the Scottish Parliament within the next few months. Further detail of all of this is in a PowerPoint presentation, which I don't have time to deliver given the time constraints, but I think Judy and colleagues are going to make that available to anyone who's interested in further information. But just to say a few words very briefly about what is the power and the problem-solving power of a human rights-based approach, it is that all laws, policies and practices, including relating to drugs, need to be grounded in human dignity and human rights, as you say, a normative framework that shapes all law policy and practice. And in the context of drugs, this plays a vital role in shifting the power imbalance and changing the culture. It empowers people who use drugs to see themselves as rights holders, not self-stigmatize them, and also, for example, that they have the same right as everyone else to the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health, and that includes harm reduction. And it shifts the culture from the negative one of criminalization, stigma, self-stigma, which causes disempowerment and discrimination. And it moves that towards the positive culture of empowerment of people who use drugs of seeing themselves as rights holders, and those who are in positions of power now as, in fact, duty bearers under an obligation to ensure that these rights are respected, protected and fulfilled. So in answer to the question, how do we replicate if we want to what we're trying to do in Scotland elsewhere and apply human rights-based approach, and a human rights-based approach, of course, is universally applicable, because it's grounded in international human rights law, and almost every country has either ratified these UN human rights treaties or has included these rights in their national constitutions. And the UN also has a common understanding of a human rights-based approach, often referred to as the panel principles. That's P for participation, A accountability, N for non-discrimination, E for empowerment, and L for legality. And we're lucky also to have, in the last two or three years, worked done by OHCHR and others to develop the international guidance on human rights and drug policy, which provides a very useful sort of translation of what this human rights framework means in the context of drug policy. So a human rights-based approach offers very practical everyday guidance on how to implement these rights, how to make them real in the different contexts we are working in. So, for example, applying participation principle, it means that individuals have the right to take part in decisions about whatever form of treatment, if any, treatment is appropriate for them, including harm reduction, and to influence meaningfully the outcome of what treatment is considered to be appropriate for them and by them. The A for accountability means that those designing and delivering drug services should ensure that they are human rights-based as a duty, and not just as perhaps a policy for today, but not for tomorrow. And then there should be no discrimination resulting from stigma against people who use drugs, who have the same equal rights to health that everybody else have, and that they are empowered to take part in designing, delivering, and monitoring the provision of all public services. And all of this, the L of panel is grounded in the international and national human rights legal framework. So in conclusion, the right to health, for example, under this normative framework requires that health care services are available, they're accessible, they're acceptable, and they're of sufficient quality. And if they're not, then there is a right to hold to account those who are failing to meet those criteria. And so it requires public related support services including adequate foods, housing, and income, so that a human rights-based approach doesn't just relate to health care needs, but to the positive determinants of good health, an adequate standard of living, et cetera. So I hope this may have sparked an interest in what we're attempting to do in Scotland, the journey that we're on, that we want to share. And I would encourage anyone who wants to find out more to have a look at the PowerPoint and please do contact us to continue a discussion. And I would also invite you to look at the message from the Minister in a few minutes. So thanks, Judy. Thank you. It's very exciting work and the first of its kind, the Charter of Rights of People Who Use Drugs. So last but not least, we have Boyan Konstantinov, Policy Specialist and HIV Health and Development of the United Nations Development Program. So Boyan, UNDP is one of the lead agencies dedicated to removing punitive laws and barriers that stand in the way of health services. Can you describe or explain more what UNP currently does to support communities on advocating for drug decriminalisation? Hello, panelists. UNDP actually provides policy advice and technical support to support the processes of law and policy reform. And we partner with all stakeholders, including very much so civil society and community organisations, to emphasise why it is important for these punitive laws and policies to be removed and for enabling legislation to be adopted. It is very disturbing that we have 143 countries that still criminalise HIV around the world. And according to UNH, there are 145 countries that criminalise drug use or possession of small quantities. Actually, harm reduction international has a higher number. So still it's very, very high. So clearly in order for us to be able to address HIV and co-infections such as hepatitis C, so that we deliver on the pledge in Agenda 2030, which is to end AIDS as a public health threat and tackle hepatitis, we need to do a lot more. And UNDP, as one of the co-sponsors of UNH, of the Joint Program on AIDS, is supporting these processes and aspiring to lead and convene the work in partnership with all other co-sponsors among the UNODC and with all other stakeholders for these laws to be reformed. This is a very long and sometimes very difficult process. When it comes to HIV criminalisation, if you see the dynamic chart, things have barely moved. When we look at the criminalisation, for instance, of same-sex sex, we have certain progress recently, but also cases of regress. When we see the criminalisation of drug use, again, we have progress in certain countries, but as Co-ordinator Wobosil mentioned, nothing prevents the country from reversing the process at certain points. So it is important to create the enabling environment for these processes to take place. This is why we have worked to support the Global Commission on HIV and the law, which is an independent body. UNDP serves as the secretariat and it has issued two reports with the very clear recommendations of what needs to change in order for us to succeed in delivering on the pledge of law reform to address HIV. As a result, we have supported and partnered in follow-up work in 90 countries around the world to this point, including legal environment assessments in 80 countries, which is this is a 360-degree very comprehensive assessment of the legal environment with actionable recommendations of what needs to change. And not only in HIV laws, it could be tax law, it could be competition law, it could be many other things. And these legal environment assessments have actually worked. The most recent example that comes to my mind, and I'm sure that there are more, was Côte d'Ivoire reforming laws related to drug use following a legal environment assessment. Another example is our scale initiative, which is supported by PEPFAR and which aims to address the 10-10-10 commitments, including the first 10, less than 10 percent of the country's experience in punitive laws, policies, and practices. And this is where we support civil society to actually have a meaningful voice and meaningfully participate in the process in the debate around reforms. We have 45 organizations that are grantees under PEPFAR, and we also have a document which is an evidence review on the pathways to achieving 10-10-10. And last but not least is the international guidelines on human rights and drug policy, which is what Professor Miller referred to. This is a partnership between UNDP and the University of Essex with support from OHCHR, UNH, WHO. And as we speak, the guidelines are being implemented. This morning, there were excellent presentations from Brazil and Colombia, other countries in Latin America, such as Chile have expressed interest. Ghana has also used the guidelines to support its reform efforts. The work must go on. It's, as I said, a very complex, complicated process. It's not easy to change existing laws, especially if they're criminal laws. And so we are very grateful for the support that we recently received from the Open Society Foundations for a global initiative around human rights, drug policy, and development, which will aim to catalyze the implementations of the international guidelines at the country level and also, in this way, stimulate the implementation of the UN system, common position on drugs, which also calls for evidence-based, rights-based, health-oriented partnership in drug policy reform. Thank you very much. Thank you so much, Boyan. We did want to show a three minute video from the Scotland's Minister for Drugs and Alcohol Policy. I would like to start by expressing my thanks to the international network of people who use drugs for organising this event and for inviting me to say a few words about our work to integrate drug policy and human rights in Scotland. Thanks also to the speakers and attendees for their contributions. I am sure it has been a fruitful discussion. I am new in this role as Minister for Drugs and Alcohol Policy, but my previous role was as Minister for Culture, Europe and International Development and I would really like to bring some of that experience with me to continue to learn and work together in an international context. The title of today's discussion, Navigating Tensions and Contradictions, is very relevant in the Scottish context. As a devolved government, we don't have control over drug laws, but we do have powers in other areas such as policing, prosecution and sentencing, education, health and social work. We are trying to manage these tensions and maximise synergies with the new Human Rights Bill in Scotland, which will incorporate the right to health into our domestic law. We have staked a strong position in relation to drug law reform, calling for the UK Government to decriminalise all drugs for personal supply, and we are doing what we can to increase the availability, accessibility, acceptability and quality of our services. This includes implementing rights-based medication assisted treatment standards and supporting the opening of a pilot safe drug consumption facility in Glasgow later this year. However, the effects of punitive drug laws are deep-rooted and add to the stigma and discrimination experienced by people who use drugs. So making sure people's rights are respected will take a lot more than this, it requires actions and strategies that are informed and implemented by communities. As you heard today, Professor Miller has been leading the work to develop a chapter of rights for people affected by substance use. This is part of our effort as a country to shift the drug policy paradigm from one of criminal justice to one of public health and human rights. The Charter of Rights, which has been developed by a network of people from across Scotland, represents the power of communities to affect change. I hope that by sharing our experiences we can learn from INPUD and other organisations on how to sustain this movement and continue to empower communities to realise the rights. Thank you. I just want to thank everybody for attending today, all the co-sponsors, all the wonderful speakers who I think spoke very passionately about the progress being made and I hope I can inspire everybody else in their work as well. Thank you for attending. Thank you to the ambassador as well.