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India
2. Indian village introduces mandatory pre-marriage AIDS tests to battle disease
"A control was essential for the disease can only be avoided not cured. Since then, 11 or 12 people have died. We have stepped up efforts to avoid the virus and tried to ensure that no one here dies due to AIDS in the future," said Village Head, Manuke
Malaysia
3. Rehab for youths who sniff glue and petrol
"We will use the Dangerous Drugs Act to tackle the unhealthy activity and this includes arrest and rehabilitation of the offenders," said Deputy Home Minister Datuk Zainal Abidin Zin
Viet Nam
4. Provinces join HIV/AIDS fight
The two provinces organised seminars on HIV/AIDS at the Mong Cai bordergate of Vietnam and the Dongxing bordergate of China. Participants agreed upon measures to be taken bilaterally to combat spread of the disease
Outside Asia
5. [AFR] Problems of health care transmissions of HIV/AIDS in Africa
"Injections may harm the patient when injection devices are reused in the absence of sterilization. Injections may harm the health care workers when dirty needles are not collected in safety boxes. Injections may harm the community at large when health care facilities are surrounded by sharp health care waste -mostly dirty syrisnges and needle," -- WHO-based Safe Injection Global Network (SIGN)
6. [NEW] Goff calls for new penalty for cannabis smoking students
"What the crime statistics show is that most crime committed by young people who ought to be at school in fact aren't in school. If you throw the kid out of school that young person then isn't under any supervision. That produces a greater risk of that young person offending in that way," said Justice Minister Phil Goff
7. [US] The Kenton county coroner broke methadone law
"Some say there is a good reason why primary care physicians should not be handed unqualified rights to treat addicts with methadone or any other drug: They may not understand the games addicts play," explained a doctor who violated federal narcotics laws by prescribing methadone
8. [US] Legalizing drugs will only add to problem
…Decriminalize drugs and nation will be crime-free
What is their solution to the problem? We must legalize drug use so it won't be a crime. Now, there is a novel solution. Why stop there? Why don't we legalize everything, then there won't be any more crime
Study
9. [SPA] Infective endocarditis in HIV positive intravenous drug abusers
10. [US] AIDS not caused by human immunodeficiency virus
1. Asia in need of billions of condoms to stop spread
Bangkok Post, Monday, August 18, 2003
Aphaluck Bhatiasevi
Billions of condoms are needed to stop Aids escalating in Asia, the World Health Organisation has said. Based on documents prepared for a meeting today in Laos, the WHO said 6-9 billion condoms were distributed a year, well short of demand of 24 billion condoms a year.
In China alone, more than a billion condoms were needed in the sex industry, according to calculations based on official estimates of six million sex workers and an average of 0.5 clients per night.Condom use is still low in most countries in the region and studies have shown that less than 20% of sex workers consistently use condoms in China. The Asia-Pacific region, which has seven million people with HIV, is set to be the epicentre of the pandemic. At least 30 million people could be infected with HIV in India and China by 2010, said the WHO.
"Condoms save lives. We need to vigorously step up promotion of this life-saving device to prevent millions of people getting infected,'' said Giovanni Deodato, the WHO representative of Laos. The meeting will promote 100% condom use in the sex industry.
The WHO said while a substantial proportion of HIV infections in Asia were attributable to commercial sex, many infections resulted from a small pool of infected sex workers as seen in Thailand. Thailand and Cambodia are thought to be alone in Asia in having falling HIV infection rates. Last year, the sex industry accounted for only 16% of HIV infections in Thailand and 21% in Cambodia.
Condom use needs to be expanded, it said, particularly in the sex industry, where the rate of sexually transmitted infections was high. The United Nations Population Fund said the need for condoms for HIV prevention would be more than double over the next 15 years. China, Burma, Mongolia, Vietnam, the Philippines and Laos have introduced condom-use programmes. Burma needs 50 million condoms a year but does not make them locally. Several million condoms are imported a year, mainly by NGOs.
http://www.bangkokpost.com/News/18Aug2003_news15.html .
...WHO launches aggressive condom policy in Asia
UN Wire,Friday, August 15, 2003
In an effort to slow the spread of HIV, the World Health Organization is working with authorities in China, Myanmar, Mongolia, Vietnam, Laos and the Philippines to implement 100 percent condom use in rapidly multiplying commercial sex establishments, Agence France-Presse reports today. The program has already been successful in Thailand and Cambodia, where new infections have plummeted by more than 80 percent since the peak of HIV/AIDS during the past 10 years, WHO officials said.
Some nongovernmental groups oppose the policy, saying the WHO is effectively condoning prostitution. In the Asia-Pacific region, 7 million people are infected with HIV, according to the WHO, and by 2010, at least 30 million people are expected to be infected with the disease in China and India, the world's most populous countries (AFP/Yahoo! News, Aug. 15).
http://www.unwire.org/UNWire/20030815/449_7562.asp
2. Indian village introduces mandatory pre-marriage AIDS tests to battle disease
Channelnewsasia.com,
Shashank Vaid
With 4 million people infected with HIV, or AIDS, India has the dubious distinction of being among countries worst hit by the disease. Widespread ignorance in the rural areas is further complicating matters. But now, a village in the Punjab state has added spark to AIDS awareness drives by prescribing mandatory pre-marriage AIDS tests.
At first glance, Manuke near Ludhiana in Punjab, comes across as just another rural setting - slow paced and undisturbed by worldly happenings. Yet this thousand strong community of Sikhs and Hindus has come up with a unique way to avoid the global scourge of AIDS. Inroads made by the pandemic into the village over the last few months has prompted the elders to change traditional norms for marriage. Manuke is the first Indian village to have introduced a mandatory ELISA test before marital alliance.
This also doubles up as a 'medical horoscope' against the incurable disease.Gurmukh Singh Sandhu - Village Head, Manuke, said: "A control was essential for the disease can only be avoided not cured. Since then, 11 or 12 people have died. We have stepped up efforts to avoid the virus and tried to ensure that no one here dies due to AIDS in the future."
Manuke's youth are among half of India's billion plus people in the age group of 15-49 years, the most vulnerable to the virus. HIV is sharply focussed in south India but Punjab's youth form only a minor part of India's 4 million HIV-affected patients. Still Manuke is not taking any chances. To avoid the pandemic regular awareness sessions have been introduced for prospective spouses.."When I get married, I will definitely ask for the HIV test to be performed both on myself and my partner. That overrides all other considerations. I agree to undergo the test for the sake of our future," said one village youth.
"I fully agree that the HIV test is necessary and I would be willing to go through it when I get married," said another. The state of Punjab owes prosperity to agricultural revolution, job migrations to the developed world and rapid industrialisation. Punjab has a per capita income of US$450, the highest in India.But its conservative and less aware countryside could now bear the brunt of a more liberal, western lifestyle.
Parts of rural Punjab are still feudalistic with less than half the number of women there literate. Health surveys reveal that knowledge of HIV is particularly weak among women. While 80 per cent of urban men recognised the need to use a condom, the corresponding figure for rural women is just 43 per cent. Public campaigns like the one underway in the village of Manuke in Punjab will surely help increase awareness against this deadly disease.
--from North East India Harm Reduction Network, Sunday, August 17, 2003
3. Rehab for youths who sniff glue and petrol
The Star Online, Saturday, August 16, 2003
IPOH - Youths caught for glue and petrol sniffing will have to undergo rehabilitation similar to drug addicts, said Deputy Home Minister Datuk Zainal Abidin Zin. He said there was a rise in the number of youths indulging in glue and petrol sniffing but rehabilitation would depend on the extent of addiction.
“We will use the Dangerous Drugs Act to tackle the unhealthy activity and this includes arrest and rehabilitation of the offenders,” he said after attending the launch of the Gerakan Generasi Muda Perak (GGMP) logo by Perak Mentri Besar Datuk Seri Mohd Tajol Rosli Ghazali here on Thursday. Zainal said that although there were no special laws to curb such activities, the Government was monitoring the misuse of such substances by youths. He was commenting on a suggestion by the National Anti-Drug Agency that glue and petrol sniffing be made illegal as it could lead to addiction.
Earlier, Tajol Rosli congratulated GGMP on its massive anti-drug campaign.
http://202.186.86.35/news/story.asp?file=/2003/8/16/nation/6068749&newspage=Search
4. Provinces join HIV/AIDS fight
VOV News, Monday, August 18, 2003
Northern Quang Ninh province and its Chinese neighbour Guangxi province have collaborated in implementing a cross-border anti-HIV/AIDS programme with funding from the Australian Agency for International Development (AUSAID). The cooperation was highlighted at a conference held recently in Quang Ninh province to review the first year of implementation.
The two provinces organised seminars on HIV/AIDS at the Mong Cai bordergate of Vietnam and the Dongxing bordergate of China. Participants agreed upon measures to be taken bilaterally to combat spread of the disease.
In addition, the programme published 30,000 brochures on HIV/AIDs in Vietnamese and Chinese languages, trained peers who are HIV/AIDS carriers, drug users, bargirls, and motorbike-drivers, and provided health care advice to 256 HIV/AIDS carriers as well as consultation to more than 22,800 people in high-risk groups.
http://www.vov.org.vn/2003_08_18/english/xahoi.htm#Provinces%20join%20HIV/AIDS%20fight
5. [AFR] Problems of health care transmissions of HIV/AIDS in Africa
World Health Organization, 31 July 2003
Yvan Hutin,
Mr Chairman, distinguished Members of the Committee, the World Health Organization (WHO) appreciates the opportunity to brief the Committee on the prevention of HIV through safe health care practices in Africa and appreciates the interest of the Committee in this important public health issue.
Senator Sessions and Members of the Committee, I am Dr Yvan Hutin from the World Health Organization in Geneva, Switzerland. WHO is an international organization - the technical specialized agency for health of the United Nations system- which currently has 192 Member States. The United States has been a member of WHO since it was founded in 1948. As a clinician, I have experience in the care of individuals with HIV infection and viral hepatitis. As an epidemiologist, I served in the Epidemic Intelligence Service of the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. I am now Project Leader of the WHO-based Safe Injection Global Network (SIGN)
which is an international coalition of stakeholders working together to make injections safe. In addition to my statement, I have provided the Committee copies of two reports entitled "The cost effectiveness of national policies for the safe and appropriate use of injections" and "Progress towards the safe and appropriate use of injections worldwide, 2000-2001" and I request that these two reports be made a part of the record.
A number of health care procedures may lead to the transmission of HIV. These include (1) transfusion of infected blood, (2) unsafe injections and (3) other skin-piercing procedures performed in the absence of universal precautions. Thus, safe health care services should offer to their users (1) selection and testing of blood donors, and when applicable, viral inactivation of human material for therapeutic use, (2) safe and appropriate use of injections and (3) procedures conducted according to universal precautions.
In Africa, for a population of 0.6 billion (10% of the world), only 2.4 million blood units are collected annually against an estimated need of six million units. About one-third of blood is donated by family replacement or paid donors considered at high risk for HIV transmission, considering the incidence and prevalence of HIV in Africa. In addition, 50% of collected blood is not tested either for HIV, HBV, HCV or syphilis. The high efficiency of transmission of HIV through transfusion of infected blood (> 90%) leads to a substantial burden of infection among transfused patients. For the remainder of this statement, I will focus primarily on the issue of unsafe health care injections which I have been asked by the Committee to address.
WHO estimates that in developing and transitional countries, 16 billion health care injections are administered each year (an average of 3.4 injections per person, per year). This high figure, along with evaluation reports indicating inappropriate use of injections, suggests that injections are overused to administer medications. Causes of this overuse may include a preference for injections among patients. However, the most important cause is a desire by health care providers to satisfy what is believed to be a
preference for injections among clients. In fact, research suggests that most patients are open to use of oral medications.
In addition to being overused, injections may also be administered by unsafe procedures and cause infections. A safe injection should not harm the patient, the health care worker or the community. However, injections may harm the patient when injection devices are reused in the absence of sterilization. Injections may harm the health care workers when dirty needles are not collected in safety boxes. Injections may harm the community at large when health care facilities are surrounded by sharp health care
waste -mostly dirty syringes and needles. Reuse of injection devices in the absence of sterilization is the problem of greatest concern that we have to address as it leads to the largest burden of disease. A mathematical model developed by WHO suggests that in 2000, in developing and transitional countries, reuse of injection devices accounted for an estimated 22 million new infections with the hepatitis B virus (a third of the total), two million new infections with the hepatitis C virus (40% of the total) and 260,000 new HIV infections (5% of the total). These infections acquired in 2000 alone are expected to lead to an estimated nine million years of life lost (adjusted for disability) between 2000 and 2030. There has been a recent controversy over the role that unsafe health care injections play in the transmission of HIV infection in sub-Saharan Africa.
While WHO estimates that, worldwide, about 5% of all HIV infections are transmitted through unsafe health care injections, this estimate is only 2.5% for sub-Saharan Africa. Although there is uncertainty around these figures, WHO and our sister program, UNAIDS, believe that they are in the right order of magnitude and that the vast majority of HIV infections in sub-Saharan Africa are transmitted via unsafe sexual practices.
This public health issue may appear daunting. Yet, evidence indicates that the death and disability associated with unsafe injections are highly preventable. First, interventions conducted to improve communication between patients and doctors and interventions to improve prescriptions through monitoring of providers have proven effective in decreasing injection overuse. Second, interventions to ensure injection device security (i.e., make single-use syringes available reliably in each health care facility) are effective in preventing reuse of injection devices. Some of the poorest countries in the world have actually achieved substantial progress through ensuring that all injectable medications are made available with sufficient quantities of single-use syringes and needles.
In addition to being highly effective, policies and plans for the safe and appropriate use of injections are a sound investment in health. In the scientific paper that I presented to the Committee as part of my statement, WHO has estimated that interventions implemented in 2000 for the safe and appropriate use of injections would have cost $102 per year of life saved (adjusted for disability). This cost is under the threshold of one year of average per capita income in developing countries used by the WHO Commission on Macroeconomics and Health as a criterion for an intervention to be considered very cost-effective. Thus, implementation of safe and appropriate use of injections as part of HIV prevention and care programmes is highly desirable and can be accomplished with only a modest shift in the assignment of resources for two reasons:
(1) Injection safety is not a costly intervention. The scientific paper on the cost effectiveness that I submitted to the committee as part of my statement includes estimates of what it would cost to ensure injection safety in each of the world's regions;
(2) The large majority of HIV infections worldwide are caused by unsafe sexual practices, thus the emphasis of HIV prevention programmes must remain on preventing sexual transmission.
Among prevention opportunities, single-use injection devices with reuse-prevention features deserve a special mention. These have been also referred to as auto-disable or auto-destruct syringes. These syringes that inactivate themselves after one use through plunger blocking, plunger breaking or needle retraction are now the norm in immunization services and are becoming the norm in other international donor and lender-supported services (e.g., family planning and tuberculosis treatment). In addition, promising new single-use syringes with reuse-prevention features have now been developed for general curative services. These devices now require field evaluation to
define their future role in public health.
Since the establishment of the Safe Injection Global Network (SIGN) at WHO in 1999, great progress has been made towards the safe and appropriate use of injection worldwide. In the progress report that I have attached as part of my statement, you will see that the government of the United States has supported WHO's effort in this area through the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the United States Agency of International Development (USAID) and the United States National Vaccine Program Office (NVPO). Additional support will be needed in the future to prevent death and disability through key interventions at country level.
Four key interventions are needed for injection safety:
(1) Increasing the awareness of the population regarding the risk of HIV and other infections associated with unsafe injections;
(2) Making sure there are sufficient quantities of single-use injection devices and safety boxes in every health care facility where injections are administered;
(3) Ensuring that all donors and lenders who support the supply of injectable substances in developing and transitional countries also support the provision of injection devices with reuse-prevention features and safety boxes;
(4) Managing the waste associated with dirty syringes and needles in a safe and appropriate way.
Four key interventions are needed for blood transfusion safety:
(1) Establishment of a nationally-coordinated blood transfusion service;
(2) Collection of blood only from voluntary non-remunerated blood donors from low-risk populations;
(3) Testing of all donated blood, including screening for transfusion-transmissible infections, blood grouping and compatibility testing;
(4) Reduction in unnecessary transfusions through the effective clinical use of blood, including the use of simple alternatives to transfusion.
WHO appreciates the opportunity to brief the Committee on this important issue. I thank you for your attention and I will be happy to answer questions you may have on this subject.
--from SIGN Moderator, Post00192, Sunday, August 17, 2003
6. [NEW] Goff calls for new penalty for cannabis smoking students
New Zealand Herald (New Zealand), Thusday, August 14, 2003
RUTH BERRY
Justice Minister Phil Goff says the Government is oncerned with the number of students suspended from schools for cannabis use and wants schools to find different ways of dealing with the problem. Mr Goff, in charge of the Government Youth Offending Strategy, said the Government understood and supported schools' desire to take a hard line on drugs.
However, there was clear evidence that youth who were not in school, whether because of suspension or truancy, were more likely to commit crimes - and to abuse the drug more frequently. Parliament's health select committee last week recommended the Ministry of Education conduct research into school stand-downs, suspensions and
expulsions as a result of cannabis incidents. It said the ministry should examine how schools and students could respond to the issue "in a way that preserves educational opportunities".
The committee was concerned that the number of school suspensions for cannabis offences exceeded stand-downs for all other offences. A Post-Primary Teachers Association report released last year found that drug-related suspensions amounted to a third of all suspensions and more than half of those involved Maori students.
The Government is now considering the report's recommendations. In response to questions in Parliament yesterday Mr Goff outlined his support for the recommendation. "What the crime statistics show is that most crime committed by young people who ought to be at school in fact aren't in school. If you throw the kid out of school that young person then isn't under any supervision. That produces a greater risk of that young person offending in that way."
--from Peter Webster, Friday, August 15, 2003
7. [US] The Kenton county coroner broke methadone law
Kentucky Post (KY), Tuesday, August 12, 2003
The Kenton County coroner, a respected family doctor and an elected official, lost his license to prescribe drugs for a year because, he says, he was following his conscience and writing forbidden prescriptions for methadone, a drug used to treat heroin and OxyContin addiction. Legally, family practitioners can write methadone prescriptions only for pain relief. Even when Dr. David Suetholz learned he was not allowed to prescribe methadone for his drug-addicted patients, though, he continued to prescribe the drug for some of them.
During a Kentucky Board of Medical Licensure inquiry last year, Suetholz told the board in a written response that his conscience would not allow him to do otherwise because he thought the addicts would go back on the street using drugs.
"I will admit I have been prescribing methadone for pain and narcotic addiction the past few years. Not until March of 2001 was I fully aware of the DEA ( Drug Enforcement Administration ) regulations limiting the use of methadone by primary care physicians, -- " Suetholz wrote in records filed with the licensing agency last August. "Enclosed are the names of the individuals I had seen in April of 2001 and their dates of discontinuations. The individuals' names filed in the ( medical licensure board ) complaint -- are patients ( to whom ) I could not morally discontinue treatment." That's when the board suspended his prescribing privileges, which were just restored July 24.
So, Suetholz, a member of the Summit Medical Group based in Taylor Mill and the Kenton County coroner for 12 years, has paid the price for his decision to violate federal narcotics laws. Neither prescribing privileges nor a medical license or degree are required to be elected or perform coroner duties in Kentucky. The physician, a University of Louisville med school graduate who has had no other disciplinary actions in 28 years of practice, says he did it because local addicts had nowhere else to turn. The closest methadone clinics -- at least 30 miles away -- are in Lexington, Dayton, Ohio, or Lawrenceburg, Ind.
Further, as coroner, he's seen the bodies of the young people who remain addicted on the street and overdose. According to the documents on file with the Kentucky Board of Medical Licensure, Seutholz wrote prescriptions for 36 addicts. The board, tipped by a grievance filed by the boyfriend of one of the patients, told him to stop. He did stop for some of the patients -- mostly young people who came to him because they could not or would not go to a methadone treatment center. Some, though, told him they would go back on the street if they could not receive methadone treatment through him. Suetholz continued to write prescriptions for and monitor the treatment of those 6 patients.
The Kentucky Board of Medical Licensure confirmed the case, but its attorney available to comment on it was out of town this week. Suetholz said in an interview that he felt the patients for whom he continued to write prescriptions were incapable of treating their addictions any other way and that he feared they would return to abusing drugs. The grievance filed with the state by the patient's friend stated that Suetholz continued prescribing methadone to treat the woman's addiction even though the friend said she was selling the methadone on the street to buy other drugs.
In the middle of a wave of heroin overdose deaths in Northern Kentucky last winter, Suetholz discussed the area's heroin problem in an interview with The Post. He did not, at that time, discuss that the medical licensure board had penalized him for treating addicts with methadone. He did, however, detail his frustration with what he described as a lack of treatment options for those addicted to heroin and other similar drugs.
Not only had Suetholz investigated some of those drug-overdose deaths in his role as Kenton County coroner, he said he had numerous patients who had sought help with their addictions through his office. "The problem is how do you treat drug addiction? You're not allowed to ( treat it ) as a primary-care physician -- with any medication like methadone," Suetholz said in last winter's interview. "The problem here is that there are not enough quality places for people to go to treat addiction. -- I have seen people with addiction who come to my office seeking help, and there is no place to send them. -- And if there is a place to send them, they very often can't afford to go there anyway."
Suetholz has paid and continues to pay a price for violating the law in what he says was the interest of his patients. Clearly, though, he feels physicians and patients would benefit if more treatment options were available to doctors in private practice. "Who's really going to talk to you about ( drug addiction ) if they know you can't do anything about it," Suetholz said.
"If you have a venereal disease, you go to the doctor because you know he can help. -- But why talk to your doctor about this if he can't help you?" When the licensure board restored Suet-holz's prescribing privileges July 24, it placed a handful of stipulations on his future prescribing practices, including requiring a pain management specialist's written instructions for any prescription he writes for methadone to manage pain. He also must follow stringent record-keeping requirements on certain prescriptions he writes.
Suetholz said that, though the 11-month prescription-writing ban did not severely affect his practice since his medical partners were able to write prescriptions for his patients, the whole ordeal over the past two years has taken its toll. But with the DEA now examining prescriptions he writes for most painkillers, he has some newfound hesitancies about his practice, he said. For instance, though he is one of the few local physicians recently trained to prescribe the new opiate-addiction treatment drug buprenorphine, he is hesitant actually to begin treating addicts.
"I don't know if I want to mess with it now," Suetholz said. "A lot of doctors don't want to mess with it. They go to the ( buprenorphine certification training ) meeting, but they don't apply for the waiver because of the hassles involved."
In late 2001, a National Institutes of Health panel recommended that the federal government ease regulations that prohibited primary care doctors from prescribing methadone for treatment of addiction in order to expand availability of treatment. The practice is currently used in Europe with success, according to the NIH, and a six-month-long trial conducted by Yale School of Medicine researchers concluded that physician-administered treatment could be successful here.
"We know of no other area of medicine where the federal government intrudes so deeply and coercively into the practice of medicine," said Dr. Lewis Judd, chairman of the NIH panel, according to the professional journal Psychiatric News. Some say there is a good reason why primary care physicians should not be handed unqualified rights to treat addicts with methadone or any other drug: They may not understand the games addicts play.
"Even though they are trained physicians who know their patients, they are not trained in addictionology, and they can get manipulated fairly easily," said Dr. Earl Siegel, director of the Drug and Poison Information Center at Children's Hospital Medical Center in Cincinnati.
"Addicts are notorious for being manipulative in many different areas and making up stories to obtain drugs -- feigning illnesses, reading the medical journals to obtain drugs. -- So there's the concern in giving every primary care physician the power to treat addicts -- because of manipulation."
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v03/n1217/a02.html
8. [US] Legalizing drugs will only add to problem
Greenwood Commonwealth, Wednesday, August 13, 2003
Charles T. Chapin
I am writing in response to the letter to the editor in the Aug. 8 edition of the Commonwealth ( "Decriminalize drugs and nation will be crime-free" ). Liberals always have such a simplistic view of everything that sometimes it is hard to carry on a conversation with them. Their views are so narrow in focus they are literally blinded to everything else. Drugs are such an evil, pervasive part of the American culture. Almost everyone is touched by them in one way or another.
A teenager is told by his "open-minded" parents that it is all right to smoke a little marijuana at home or at a party. These are the same parents who had indulged in drugs when they were young and they want their kids to think they are with it. So, they allow their children to use drugs. They let their children indulge in drug use, but they don't want them to have to accept the responsibility for what they are doing. The children wind up addicted and move on to harder drugs. These parents now have a drug addict in the family.
What is their solution to the problem? We must legalize drug use so it won't be a crime. Now, there is a novel solution. Why stop there? Why don't we legalize everything, then there won't be any more crime.
A society that tries to succeed without self-discipline is doomed. Everyone, whether they be male or female, young or old, black or white, rich or poor, should be required to accept responsibility for their actions. If you do something good, you get to take the credit for it. If you do something bad, you should accept responsibility for your actions. You accept your punishment and then move on with your life. This will never happen as long as you have apologists who will make excuses for those who commit crimes.
Those who do drugs had a conscious choice in the direction they took in their lives. They did not use drugs because it was forced on them. They were told by numerous individuals that it was OK, it was not their fault, society was the culprit because we had these laws we required everyone to obey.
There will never be an easy solution to this hideous problem that faces parents today. However, this nation has a rule of law, and good or bad, like it or not, it is the best thing going right now.
If Miss Anita Mayfield thinks that legalizing drugs is going to solve the problem, she is very naive. The only possible result of this action will be to increase by millions the number of drug addicts who will continue to be a drain on the society whose laws they no longer have to obey.
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v03/n1223/a04.html?397
...Decriminalize drugs and nation will be crime-free
Greenwood Commonwealth, Friday, August 8, 2003
Anita T. Mayfield
This is in response to the Aug. 5 column, "Drugs and the family unit." The author ( Charles Dunagin ) started his story by referring to a scene in the movie, "The Godfather," with the characters discussing the pros and cons of getting into the illegal drug business, which was set in the 1940s. The movie and its content is just that: a movie.
Of course the Italian Mafia and every other organized crime group, including our government, got into the illegal drug business since prohibition had been lifted off alcohol. There was no longer money to made off this "unattainable drink." In 1937, some very powerful, greedy politicians and their cronies made hemp illegal for their gain. Here comes the big money to be made.
The main players in this real life story are William Randolph Hearst, newspaper and magazine tycoon; Andrew Mellon, secretary of the Treasury and founder of the Gulf Oil Corp.; Harry Anslinger, nephew-in-law of Mellon; Dupont Chemical Corp. and a handful of other bureaucrats.
Since the outlaw of hemp and every other drug that major pharmaceutical companies can't put their label on, our society has gone to hell in a handbag. No other country can come close to the crime and incarceration rate as ours. We have become such a sick society that we will punish a non-violent drug offender more harshly than we will a murderer, rapist and child molester. This is insanity at its finest.
Until this complete failure known as "The war on drugs" is eradicated, things will only get worse. Our children will suffer from these treasonous acts for generations to come. Almost all crimes are drug-related; not because the drugs are there ( they always will be ), but because they are illegal. You take away the crime element, and we will virtually be a crime-free nation. This is a concept our generation cannot grasp: crime-free. We can only imagine it, but it can become a reality if we make it happen.
Laws are interchangeable and so are the politicians. These are our "elected" officials. Investigate these people and vote. Encourage others to become registered voters and then encourage them to vote. Politicians do not like informed voters but they do like your vote; they mainly like to spew sound bites that get folks stirred up into a voting booth frenzy. Anyone can do this, and its the oldest political trick in the book. Know who you are voting for and vote. You matter. Let's take America back; it is ours.
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v03/n1213/a10.html?1371
9. Study: [SPA] Infective endocarditis in HIV positive intravenous drug abusers
HIV and Hepatits, Monday, August 18, 2003
Infective endocarditis (IE) is one of the most severe complications in intravenous drug abusers (IVDA). IE usually involves the tricuspid valve, Staphylococcus aureus is the most common etiologic agent, and it has a relatively good prognosis.
Currently, between 40% and 90% of IVDA with IE are HIV-infected, and the HIV epidemic has caused a decrease in the incidence of this disease, probably due to changes in drug administration habits undertaken by addicts in order to avoid HIV transmission. This review focuses on progress made over the past few years in some aspects of IE in IVDA.
The pathogenesis of tricuspid endocarditis is still unknown more than 60 years after the first series. The most important advance in antibiotic therapy is that noncomplicated S. aureus right-sided endocarditis can be successfully treated with an intravenous 2-week course of nafcillin or cloxacillin plus an aminoglycoside, although probably the aminoglycoside administration could be stopped after the first 3 to 5 days. Surgery in HIV-infected IVDA with IE does not worsen the prognosis.
Considering the possibility of reinfection in IVDA, prosthetic material is usually avoided. Tricuspid valvulectomy or valve repair should be considered the technique of choice in IVDA with right-sided IE. Replacement of the tricuspid valve by a cryopreserved mitral homograft is the latest introduction into clinical practice. It provides atrioventricular competence, thereby avoiding late right heart failure. Reinfections can be treated medically with a negligible re-operation rate. Overall mortality for HIV-infected or non-HIV-infected IVDA with IE is similar. However, among HIV-infected IVDA, mortality is significantly higher in those who are most severely immunosuppressed, with CD4+ cell counts below 200/L or with AIDS criteria.
http://www.hivandhepatitis.com/recent/idu/081303e.html
10. Study: [US] AIDS not caused by human immunodeficiency virus
Virus Weekly 12 August 2003
The human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) is only a passenger virus and not a cause of AIDS, according to a report published in the Journal of Biosciences.
"In 1981 a new epidemic of about two-dozen heterogeneous diseases began to strike non-randomly growing numbers of male homosexuals and mostly male intravenous drug users in the U.S. and Europe. Assuming immunodeficiency as the common denominator the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) termed the epidemic, AIDS, for acquired immunodeficiency syndrome. From 1981-1984 leading researchers including those from the CDC proposed that recreational drug use was the cause of AIDS, because of exact correlations and of drug-specific diseases," scientists in the United States and Germany report.
"However, in 1984 U.S. government researchers proposed that a virus, now termed human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), is the cause of the non-random epidemics of the U.S. and Europe but also of a new, sexually random epidemic in Africa," said Peter Duesberg and collaborators at the University of California-Berkeley in the United States and Internistische Praxis in Germany.
The researchers stated, "The virus-AIDS hypothesis was instantly accepted, but it is burdened with numerous paradoxes, none of which could be resolved by 2003: Why is there no HIV in most AIDS patients, only antibodies against it? Why would HIV take 10 years from infection to AIDS? Why is AIDS not self-limiting via antiviral immunity? Why is there no vaccine against AIDS? Why is AIDS in the U.S. and Europe not random like other viral epidemics? Why did AIDS not rise and then decline exponentially owing to antiviral immunity like all other viral epidemics? Why is AIDS not contagious? Why would only HIV carriers get AIDS who use either recreational or anti-HIV drugs or are subject to malnutrition? Why is the mortality of HIV-antibody-positives treated with anti-HIV drugs 7-9%, but that of all (mostly untreated) HIV-positives globally is only 1.4%?"
"Here we propose that AIDS is a collection of chemical epidemics, caused by recreational drugs, anti-HIV drugs, and malnutrition," reported Duesberg and his coauthors. "According to this hypothesis AIDS is not contagious, not immunogenic, not treatable by vaccines or antiviral drugs, and HIV is just a passenger virus. The hypothesis explains why AIDS epidemics strike non-randomly if caused by drugs and randomly if caused by malnutrition, why they manifest in drug- and malnutrition-specific diseases, and why they are not self-limiting via anti-viral immunity. The hypothesis predicts AIDS prevention by adequate nutrition and abstaining from drugs, and even cures by treating AIDS diseases with proven medications."
Duesberg and his colleagues published their study in the Journal of Biosciences (The chemical bases of the various AIDS epidemics: recreational drugs, anti-viral chemotherapy and malnutrition. J Biosciences, 2003;28(4):383-412).
For additional information, contact Peter Duesberg, Donner Laboratory, University of California-Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA. E-mail: duesberg@uclink4.berkeley.edu The publisher's contact information for the Journal of Biosciences is: Indian Academy of Sciences, C.V. Raman Avenue, P B Number 8005, Bangalore 560 080, India. The information in this article comes under the major subject areas of AIDS and HIV Pathogenesis, AIDS and HIV Risk Factor, AIDS and HIV Therapy, and Virology.
--from UNESCAP, Tuesday, August 12, 2003
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