Taipei Mayor Chiang Wanan and Democratic Progressive Party Taipei mayoral candidate Shen Boyang have recently had a confrontation over the issue of "drugs". There has been a direct equation of the "drug addiction AIDS harm reduction program" with "encouraging drug use", and even described clean needle services as a government policy to encourage drug use. The Red Ribbon Foundation issued a statement today emphasizing that public policies can be tested and criticized, but policy content should not be deliberately simplified or even distorted for the sake of political offense and defense.
The Red Ribbon Foundation released a statement on Facebook today with the title "Don't let election attacks and defenses erase the public health value of Taiwan's AIDS harm reduction policies." It emphasized that public policies can be tested and criticized, but policy content should not be deliberately simplified or even distorted for the sake of political attack and defense. The clean needle exchange program does not encourage people to start using drugs, but targets existing injection behaviors to reduce the risk of blood-borne diseases that may be caused by sharing needles.
Lin Ding, former deputy director of the Bureau of Disease Control and Prevention of the Department of Health, is also a consultant to the Red Ribbon Foundation. He participated in the entire process and actively promoted the "Harm Reduction Plan". He said that AIDS prevention and treatment should be based on a correct understanding of the disease, an understanding of the current epidemic situation, the protection of the health of infected people and the public interest, and the use of evidence-based and effective methods to solve social problems, rather than dealing with the epidemic through pan-moral condemnation, exclusion or punishment, which cannot solve the real problem.
The Red Ribbon Foundation explained that in 2005, there were 3,378 newly reported HIV (AIDS virus) infections in Taiwan, of which 2,426 were drug addicts, accounting for 72% of the total cases; by 2020, the number of drug addicts had dropped to 22, accounting for about 1.6% of the new infections that year. It dropped from 72% to 1.6%. This is a very significant change in the epidemiological structure of HIV in Taiwan. The harm reduction plan also includes multiple interventions such as clean needle exchange, methadone substitution treatment, health education, screening and cross-departmental cooperation.
The Red Ribbon Foundation pointed out that "harm reduction" and "anti-drug" are never mutually exclusive policies, but deal with problems at different stages. The importance of harm reduction policies is to deal with how to reduce the infection, disease and death caused by high-risk behaviors when they have not completely disappeared, while also curbing the spread of the disease in the community.
The Red Ribbon Foundation calls on all discussions to return to data and evidence, rather than using stigma and fear to create political offense and defense. Twenty years ago, Taiwan used clean needles and integrated harm reduction policies to respond to the two major epidemics of HIV and heroin addiction. Twenty years later, we should hold on to this valuable public health experience, rather than letting the short-term offensive and defense of the election erase the achievements and social costs that Taiwan has accumulated over the years in AIDS prevention and heroin addiction prevention.
