Drugs Obscure the Human Rights Issues for Drug Users: Are Demons and Jumbies Rights Holders?

• Author: Marcus Day
• Pages: 23-37

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DRUGS OBSCURE THE HUMAN R IGHTS ISSUES FOR DRUG USERS

Drug users as a population can be viewed as vulnerable as a result of

their illegal, and therefore criminal, drug use and resultant lifestyle.

The view that drug users are entitled to the same human rights as the

general population is a relatively new concept that has grown out of and

around the development of harm reduction interventions that address

the needs of drug users from a non-judgemental perspective that focuses

on reducing drug-related harms and not the legality of drug use.

This chapter addresses the question of whether drug users in the

Caribbean, and by extension all drug users, are rights holders. To

accomplish this we will explore the current status of drug users in the

Caribbean, their vulnerability to HIV and how the international

conventions and laws prohibiting drug use dramatically increase the

vulnerability of drug users to HIV and social exclusion.

We will start a short discourse on vulnerability and how prohibitionist

legislation creates a greater vulnerability than the behaviour it prohibits, a

discussion of drug use (primarily non-injecting crack cocaine use) and

HIV risk in the context of the Commonwealth Caribbean, and an outline

of the international drug conventions and how the Caribbean’s wholesale

acceptance of these conventions place drug users at increased risk.

Vulnerability is viewed as a result of complex economic, social and

cultural drivers of the epidemic. The author contends that the state needs

to be added to that list as the creator of legislation that tramples, rather

than protects, human rights.

Examples of laws that are guilty of creating or increasing vulnerability

include:

Drugs Obscure the Human Rights

Issues for Drug Users

Marcus Day

Are Demons and Jumbies Rights Holders?

Chapter 2