Drug use, harm reduction and the right to health - Report of the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to health

In the present report, the Special Rapporteur on the right of everyone to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health, Tlaleng Mofokeng, explores how harm reduction relates to both drug use and drug use disorders, as well as to drug laws and policies, aiming to analyse and address the related outcomes that adversely impact the enjoyment of the right to health. In doing so, she focuses on drugs whose production, distribution and consumption have been subject to control under the international drug control conventions, including how the approach to such control has negatively affected the availability, accessibility, acceptability and quality of certain drugs used as medicines.

The Special Rapporteur considers harm reduction interventions particularly important for populations that are often stigmatized and discriminated against in the context of drug use and the enforcement of drug laws and policies. She explores how this compounds other forms of discrimination and disproportionately affects certain individuals, such as persons in situations of homelessness or poverty, persons with mental health issues, sex workers, women, children, LGBTIQA+ persons, Black persons, Indigenous Peoples, migrants, persons who are incarcerated or detained, persons with disabilities, persons living with HIV, tuberculosis or hepatitis, and persons living in rural areas. She also examines gaps in harm reduction care, including in contexts in which it fails to meet the needs of those who have borne the brunt of punitive drug laws and policies over decades, such as persons of African descent and Indigenous Peoples.