WikiLeaks shows U.S. actions to suppress harm reduction

This is from back in 2009

SUBJECT: Breaking the UNGASS Impasse on “Harm Reduction” […]

Summary

Negotiations for the UNGA special session have hit an impasse, created by EU insistence on adding the controversial term “harm reduction” to various parts of the draft UNGASS action plan and political declaration. While Canada, an opponent of the term’s inclusion, is considering conceding to EU demands, other opponents are standing firm with the U.S. in preventing such a problematic element’s inclusion. Mission has engaged counterparts at every level, from experts to ambassadors in an attempt to break the impasse and find compromise language. Mission believes there is increasing pressure within the EU to resolve this gridlock and avoid an embarrassing showdown at the March Commission on Narcotic Drugs (CND) but some delegations will be inclined to hold this issue hostage up until the opening of the CND, in hopes the US will relent. To facilitate EU compromise, Mission recommends that the Department reach out to various capitals and the European Commission to help underscore the firmness of U.S. resolve-both to our allies and to the EU, before the EU horizontal group meeting in Brussels on February 4. Mission has urged like-minded countries here (Japan, Russia, Colombia) to take similar actions. End Summary.

EU Crusade on “Harm Reduction”

There have been difficult negotiations in Vienna on the “harm reduction” issue in the demand reduction chapter of the draft UNGASS action plan (Ref A) and political declaration. The Czech Republic reiterated this demand on January 26 on behalf of the presidency. The plan will be annexed to the political declaration expected to be issued by ministers attending the high-level segment of the UNGASS review meeting in Vienna March 10-12, 2009. The main
divide is between EU advocates for including “harm reduction” in the plan, and those who oppose such inclusion, namely U.S., Russia, Japan, Colombia and possibly Canada. Although opposed to harm reduction, Canada’s experts in Ottawa are receptive of a recent compromise (including the term in a footnote rather than in the text), and we understand that Ottawa will have a discussion on the political level to decide how to handle this issue.

The U.S. succeeded in keeping “harm reduction” out of the declaration at that time thereby increasing harm throughout the world.

[Thanks, RJ — via Neurobonkers]
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14 Responses to WikiLeaks shows U.S. actions to suppress harm reduction

  1. Gart says:

    I can’t wait to see millions of US citizens marching to Washington to protest against the War on Drugs. If Mexico can, surely the US can, too.

    Gart Valenc
    http://www.stopthewarondrugs.org

  2. Buc says:

    Our government sucks. Unfortunate that they represent us so poorly on such a consistent basis.

  3. darkcycle says:

    Harm reduction conflicts with their existing goal: Harm Enhancement.

  4. Duncan20903 says:

    .
    .
    Practicing harm reduction makes the work of the producers of hysterical rhetoric more difficult by several orders of magnitude. How the heck could we warn people of the danger of (some) “drugs” without a campaign of hysterical rhetoric built on a platform of bald faced lies and half truths?
    ……………………………………………………………………………………..

    Wow, young Cash Hyde is certainly getting a lot of press exposure.

  5. vickyvampire says:

    Yes,Ditto Our government sucks and thank God for wikileaks,folks the age of Pisces has left us we are in the age of Aquarius yup I sound new agy but that is the wall of secrets opening the hidden no more its great and sad cause of the state of our state of affairs of how depressing.
    Holy shit I sound like total psychobabble rant today TGIF. HA HA.

    • darkcycle says:

      V.V. The Aquarian age promise of revealing hidden things is a reference to the clarity of water. Wikiwater? Mayans were predicting everything to fall apart, with the well known and highly (and often) anticipated “End of The World” coming next year. My own great great great (and I can’t remember how many more “greats”) grandfather (John Dee)spoke to Angels who told him of the age of wonders coming to an end.
      Me, the aliens who I speak to, well, between bong hits, if they can stop laughing, tell me we’re just fucked, and we’re not getting out of this THAT easy. 😉

      • allan420 says:

        lol…

        the aliens who I speak to, well, between bong hits, if they can stop laughing, tell me we’re just fucked, and we’re not getting out of this THAT easy.

        I know them guys!

        And actually the end of the world is May 21… a billboard told me so.

      • darkcycle says:

        Yeah Allan, my weed’s reputation is Galaxy wide.

      • darkcycle says:

        So Allan, still planning to make it up for Hempfest?

  6. bestmishu says:

    Our government sucks. Unfortunate that they represent us so poorly on such a consistent basis.

  7. kaptinemo says:

    Well, no one should be surprised. Certainly not at the standard US presumption that drug prohibition is desirable as a means of social control…without regards to the cost in lives.

    Coldly cynical manipulation while trumpeting moral imperatives…and dispensing moral judgements. While elements within this government have benefited and continue to benefit from the drug trade they publicly abhor and denounce.

    But Hemingway’s ‘bell’ is finally ‘tolling’; one more sharp, hard shock and the economic house of cards will fall, and that means no funding for the DrugWar. Between imperial overreach abroad and domestic disaffection with the lack of social safety net funding, and the ever-contracting economy being further destroyed by inflation, the people are once again shaking off their lethargy and complacency.

    Wisconsin and Ohio and other States where naked corp-rat power grabs are finally being challenged, are showing what happens when people’s livelihoods are threatened. It’s just a matter of time before some labor movement leader realizes just how much has been squandered on the War on (Some) Drugs, and takes the drumsticks the faux conservatives use to beat their ‘fiscal responsibility’ drums with, and begin to use those drumsticks on the former drummers.

    The issue of the patent hypocrisy of continuing funding for failed ‘law n order’, ‘broken windows’ approaches to drug prohibition, while infrastructure rots and people go hungry, practically begs for use as a political hammer.

    Too bad most ‘progressives’ (/sneer) are too damn wimpy to lift it…

  8. Pingback: WikiLeaks shows U.S. actions to suppress harm reduction « Drug WarRant | The Daily Conservative

  9. ezrydn says:

    Politicians quit representing us the day the votes are counted.

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