Opioid Use Among Those Who Have Criminal Justice Experience: Harm Reduction Strategies to Lessen HIV Risk.

PURPOSE OF REVIEW: We reviewed the HIV and opioid literature relevant to harm reduction strategies for those with criminal justice experience. RECENT FINDINGS: Opioid use in the United States has risen at an alarming rate recently. This has led to increased numbers of people who inject drugs, placing new populations at risk for HIV, including those who have criminal justice experience. In recent years, there has been a gradual decrease in the number of individuals under the supervision of the criminal justice system. However, concurrently, there has been a rise in the number of individuals incarcerated in jails in rural counties that are at the center of the current opioid epidemic. We provide a number of harm reduction strategies that could be implemented in correctional settings such as access and linkage to medication-assisted treatment, connection to syringe exchange programs and safe injection facilities (where available), and the repackaging of pre-exposure prophylaxis as a harm reduction tool.

Treating Addictions: Harm Reduction in Clinical Care and Prevention.

This paper examines the role of clinical practitioners and clinical researchers internationally in establishing the utility of harm-reduction approaches to substance use. It thus illustrates the potential for clinicians to play a pivotal role in health promoting structural interventions based on harm-reduction goals and public health models. Popular media images of drug use as uniformly damaging, and abstinence as the only acceptable goal of treatment, threaten to distort clinical care away from a basis in evidence, which shows that some ways of using drugs are far more harmful than others and that punitive approaches and insistence on total abstinence as the only goal of treatment often increases the harms of drug use rather than reducing drug use. Therefore the leadership and scientific authority of clinicians who understand the health impact of harm-reduction strategies is needed. Through a review of harm-reduction interventions in Canada, the United Kingdom, the United States, Australia, Switzerland, and the Netherlands, we identify three ways that clinicians have helped to achieve a paradigm shift from punitive approaches to harm-reduction principles in clinical care and in drug policy: (1) through clinical research to provide data establishing the effectiveness and feasibility of harm-reduction approaches, (2) by developing innovative clinical programmes that employ harm reduction, and thereby (3) changing the standard of care to include routine use of these evidence-based (but often misunderstood) approaches in their practices. We argue that through promotion of harm-reduction goals and methods, clinicians have unique opportunities to improve the health outcomes of vulnerable populations.

Public Health and Solitary Confinement in the United States.

The history of solitary confinement in the United States stretches from the silent prisons of 200 years ago to today's supermax prisons, mechanized panopticons that isolate tens of thousands, sometimes for decades. We examined the living conditions and characteristics of the populations in solitary confinement. As part of the growing movement for reform, public health agencies have an ethical obligation to help address the excessive use of solitary confinement in jails and prisons in accordance with established public health functions (e.g., violence prevention, health equity, surveillance, and minimizing of occupational and psychological hazards for correctional staff). Public health professionals should lead efforts to replace reliance on this overly punitive correctional policy with models based on rehabilitation and restorative justice.

Pathologizing poverty: new forms of diagnosis, disability, and structural stigma under welfare reform.

In 1996 the U.S. severely restricted public support for low income people, ending "welfare as we know it." This led to dramatic increases in medicalized forms of support for indigent people, who increasingly rely on disability benefits justified by psychiatric diagnoses of chronic mental illness. We present case studies drawn from ethnographic data involving daily participant-observation between 2005 and 2012 in public clinics and impoverished neighborhoods in New York City, to describe the subjective experience of structural stigma imposed by the increasing medicalization of public support for the poor through a diagnosis of permanent mental disability. In some cases, disability benefits enable recipients to fulfill important social roles (sustaining a vulnerable household and promoting stable parenting). The status of family members who receive a monthly disability check improves within their kin and neighborhood-based networks, counterbalancing the felt stigma of being identified by doctors as "crazy". When a diagnosis of mental pathology becomes a valuable survival strategy constituting the basis for fulfillment of household responsibilities, stigmatizing processes are structurally altered. Through the decades, the stigmatized labels applied to the poor have shifted: from being a symptom of racial weakness, to the culture of poverty, and now to permanent medical pathology. The neoliberal bureaucratic requirement that the poor must repeatedly prove their "disabled" status through therapy and psychotropic medication appears to be generating a national and policy-maker discourse condemning SSI malingerers, resurrecting the 16th century specter of the "unworthy poor".

Sida: epidemiología de una nueva enfermedad / HIV/AIDS, epidemiology of a new disease

El autor sostiene que la fuerza de propagación de la epidemia del Sida en EEUU radicó en la decisión política de criminalizar el uso de drogas, en lugar de abordar la adicción como un problema de salud. De este modo, pone en evidencia que la política de drogas de EEUU tuvo nefastas consecuencias para la salud pública

Sida: epidemiología de una nueva enfermedad / HIV/AIDS, epidemiology of a new disease

El autor sostiene que la fuerza de propagación de la epidemia del Sida en EEUU radicó en la decisión política de criminalizar el uso de drogas, en lugar de abordar la adicción como un problema de salud. De este modo, pone en evidencia que la política de drogas de EEUU tuvo nefastas consecuencias para la salud pública

Failed drug policies in the United States and the future of AIDS: a perfect storm.

How much could US policies have reduced the initial growth of the epidemic had we moved earlier to institute Harm Reduction drug policies such as needle exchange programs for injecting drug users? The US Centers for Disease Control estimates 50 000 HIV infections annually in the United States (156 per million population), but the more populous European Union estimates 5000 (less that 10 per cent of the US incidence) - a measure of the failure of US prevention policies for HIV. The earliest official responses to AIDS in the United States expressed official fear and condemnation of victims and denial of the magnitude and seriousness of the population risks in the epidemic's early stages. These failures with AIDS prefigure current US crises in general health policies and interfere with efforts to successfully inform public understanding of the meaning and value of scientific evidence about health have diminished public confidence in credibility and trustworthiness of professional and political leadership for US health polices.

Adolescent substance use and other illegal behaviors and racial disparities in criminal justice system involvement: findings from a US national survey.

We used data from a national survey to examine arrest rate disparities between African American and White adolescents (aged 12-17 years; n=6725) in relation to drug-related and other illegal behaviors. African American adolescents were less likely than Whites to have engaged in drug use or drug selling, but were more likely to have been arrested. Racial disparities in adolescent arrest appear to result from differential treatment of minority youths and to have long-term negative effects on the lives of affected African American youths.

Bringing health care advocacy to a public defender's office.

Recent arrestees often face barriers to health care access as they move through the judicial process, placing them at significant health risk. The immediate postrelease period generally involves numerous court dates, meetings, and other obligations that can fragment the delivery of care. A residency training program collaborated with public defenders to facilitate medical screenings and referrals for recent arrestees in Bronx County, New York. From May 2005 to June 2007, a medical resident met with 104 arrestees at the public defenders' office to take medical histories, make medical referrals, and make appointments at a primary care clinic. Arrestees' kept-appointment rate at the clinic (66%) exceeded the clinic's overall 2006-2007 kept-appointment rate for first appointments (50%). Collaboration between public defenders and physicians can facilitate arrestees' access to health care.

On drug treatment and social control: Russian narcology's great leap backwards.

The medical discipline of narcology in Russia is a subspecialty of psychiatry from the Soviet era and it is given warrant to define the scope of health activities with regard to alcohol and other drug use, drug users, and related problems. Narcological practice is in turn constrained by the State. The emergence of widespread injection opiate use and associated HIV morbidities and mortalities during the first decade following the collapse of the Soviet Union has brought the contradictions in Russian narcological discourse into high relief. Narcology officials in the Russian Federation have consistently opposed substitution treatment for opiate dependence--the replacement of a short-acting illegal substance with a longer acting prescribed drug with similar pharmacological action but lower degree of risk. Thus, despite the addition of methadone and buprenorphine to WHO's list of essential medicines in 2005 and multiple position papers by international experts calling for substitution treatment as a critical element in the response to HIV (IOM, 2006; UNODC, UNAIDS, and WHO, 2005), methadone or buprenorphine remain prohibited by law in Russia. The authors detail Russian opposition to the prescription of methadone and buprenorphine, describing four phenomena: (1) the dominance of law enforcement and drug control policy over public health and medical ethics; (2) the conflation of Soviet era alcoholism treatment with treatment for opiate dependence; (3) the near universal representation of detoxification from drugs as treatment for dependence; and (4) a framework for judging treatment efficacy that is restricted to "cure" versus "failure to cure," and does not admit its poor outcomes or recognize alternative frameworks for gauging treatment of opiate dependence. In keeping with this position, Russian narcology officials have taken an implacable ideological stance toward illicit drug use, the people who use drugs, and their treatment. By adopting policies and practices totally unsupported by scientific evidence and inquiry, officials in Russia have rendered narcology (and medical practice) insensitive to the alarming rates and continued spread of HIV, with its dire morbidity and mortality rates in the Russian Federation, turning their backs on all the other health problems posed by opiate use and dependence itself.

A paradoxical peace: HIV in post-conflict states.

Conflict has traditionally been thought to contribute to the epidemic spread of HIV. New data call into question this assumption, and there is concern that the 'post-conflict phase' may be a particularly dangerous time for HIV transmission. The post-conflict phase is characterized by a potentially disastrous confluence of factors including demobilization of combatants, the presence of peacekeeping forces, the return of potentially infected soldiers and refugees, high-risk behaviours and persistent economic and social debilitation. These factors, along with the concentration of populations into cities and urban areas, may further increase the risk to these populations of HIV infection. Further research and study are required to adequately inform and address the issue of HIV transmission in post-conflict societies.

Return to Galileo? The Inquisition of the International Narcotic Control Board.

Nearly 400 years after Galileo Galilei of Florence was arraigned and convicted of suspected heresy by the ten member Congregation of the Holy Office (Inquisition), the International Narcotic Control Board (INCB) is similarly inserting itself into matters pertaining to innovations in healthcare and the public health response to addiction throughout the world. Like that earlier Inquisition of 1633 that convicted Galileo of heresy for holding that the sun is the centre of the universe with the earth revolving around it (in contradiction to church doctrine of the time) the INCB and its thirteen-member panel, now rails against any evidence out of sync with the established doctrine of the war on drugs--particularly those innovations in public health called harm reduction. The latest healthcare and harm reduction practices to attract the ire of the INCB Inquisition are elements of Canada's most effective and innovative measures to minimize the harms of drugs in Vancouver--supervised injection facilities and, recently, the potential establishment of supervised inhalation rooms--along with the long established practice of providing safer mouthpieces for pulmonary inhalation in British Columbia. This is particularly significant as it comes in the midst of a crucial battle between municipal and provincial authorities in BC with the federal government in Ottawa, which seems determined to undermine all the most effective HR programs that are the result of years of steady local and governmental support in Vancouver and now threatens to derail all these programs and spread doubt about their usefulness despite the overwhelmingly positive findings of serous research.

Years of life lost to prison: racial and gender gradients in the United States of America.

BACKGROUND: The United States has the highest rate of imprisonment of any country in the world. African Americans and Hispanics comprise a disproportionately large share of the prison population. We applied a "prison life expectancy" to specify differences in exposure to imprisonment by gender and race at the population level. METHODS: The impact of imprisonment on life expectancy in the United States was measured for each year from 2000 to 2004, and then averaged. Using the Sullivan method, prison and prison-free life expectancies were estimated by dividing the years lived in each age range of the life table into these two states using prevalence of imprisonment by gender and race. RESULTS: African American males can expect to spend on average 3.09 years in prison or jail over their lifetime and Hispanic and Caucasian males can spend on average 1.06 and 0.50 years, respectively. African American females, on the other hand, can expect to spend on average 0.23 years in these institutions and Hispanic and Caucasian females can expect to spend on average 0.09 and 0.05 years, respectively. Overall, African American males, the highest risk group, can expect to spend on average 61.80 times longer in prison or jail as compared to Caucasian women, the lowest risk group. CONCLUSION: There are clear gender and racial gradients in life expectancy spent in prison in the United States. Future research needs to examine how current imprisonment practice in the United States may influence population health and health disparities.

Tobacco harm reduction: how rational public policy could transform a pandemic.

Nicotine, at the dosage levels smokers seek, is a relatively innocuous drug commonly delivered by a highly harmful device, cigarette smoke. An intensifying pandemic of disease caused or exacerbated by smoking demands more effective policy responses than the current one: demanding that nicotine users abstain. A pragmatic response to the smoking problem is blocked by moralistic campaigns masquerading as public health, by divisions within the community of opponents to present policy, and by the public-health professions antipathy to any tobacco-control endeavours other than smoking cessation. Yet, numerous alternative systems for nicotine delivery exist, many of them far safer than smoking. A pragmatic, public-health approach to tobacco control would recognize a continuum of risk and encourage nicotine users to move themselves down the risk spectrum by choosing safer alternatives to smoking--without demanding abstinence.

Closed to reason: time for accountability for the International Narcotic Control Board.

For more than two decades, the International Narcotic Control Board (INCB) has tried to stop harm reduction and its HIV prevention programs. This posture is based on a fundamental misunderstanding of their responsibilities and of drug addiction itself--i.e. as a public health and clinical care matter made criminal by decree. A recent focal point for the Board's action has been rejecting the use of supervised injection facilities to reduce morbidity and mortality of drug injectors. They single out individual countries and attempt to bully them into rejecting such programs under the banner of the United Nations (falsely) and in the name of international treaties. Their unrelenting and unjustified badgering of signatories to the international treaties that established the INCB is not only unjustified; it is an affront to one of the core purposes of the Board itself: to ensure adequate medical supplies and safe use of controlled substances. The INCB's ill-conceived obsession with intravenous addiction as a crime flies in the face of the medical view and policies of the World Health Organization and the universally endorsed principles of the General Assembly of the United Nations. The latest target of the INCB is North America's only supervised injection facility, Insite, located in the inner city of Vancouver, Canada. Using the power of their office to meddle in matters of public health for individual nations is without medical, scientific or legal justification. But, most importantly, it is a matter of life and death for these most marginalized of citizens. The empirical evidence remains that a significant portion of the continued growth of the AIDS pandemic is due to injecting drug use, and the INCB's intrusion will inevitably result in additional deaths due to preventable HIV infections and drug overdoses. So we are very pleased to call to our readers' attention to a recent report produced by the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network and the International Harm Reduction Development Program (IHRD) joined by former United Nations Special Envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa, the respected Canadian statesman Stephen Lewis. The full report, "Closed to Reason: The International Narcotics Control Board and HIV/AIDS" is attached along [see Additional file 1] with a Russian translation of the key findings of the authors [see Additional files 2] as well as Russian and Chinese translations of this abstract [see Additional 3 and 4]. As the report makes very clear, the time to inject some accountability and reason into the INCB is now.