摘要：Injection drug use has emerged as a critical concern of judicial and public health systems worldwide. Internationally, there are now an estimated sixteen million injection drug users (IDU) residing in every global hemisphere.1 This population experiences a high degree of marginalization and disproportionately high levels of health and social harms compared with the general population.2 Of greatestconcern are heightened rates of mortality among IDU, which result primarily from epidemic levels of HIV infection and fatal overdose. These twin epidemics of injection drug use and HIV have spurred the reevaluation of current illicit drug policies worldwide. Drug policy approaches have been remarkably consistent internationally since the latter half of the twentieth century, with almost every United Nations (UN) member state a party to the three UN Conventions related to drug use: the 1961 Single Convention, the 1972 Convention on Psychotropic Substances, and the 1988 Convention Against Illicit Trafficking.3 The result of this widespread adoption of prohibitive drug policies has been that, while the intensity of drug policies varies across countries,4 drug law enforcement is almost universally employed in an effort to reduce drug use and control drug-related harms.5
