"...Outside Africa, national and international policy toward drug users will play a critical role in determining the course of the HIV epidemic in the next decade. Needle-borne HIV infections spread faster than sexually transmitted ones, and Eastern Europe and Asia are already facing injection-driven epidemics of unprecedented scale and scope. Malaysia and Vietnam have registered more than 55,000 and 75,000 cases of HIV, respectively, with the majority of cases in both countries among injection drug users and the actual numbers of those infected thought to be much higher. The Chinese government--though likely to be vastly underestimating the scope of those infected through blood donation schemes in the center of the country--already acknowledges that 1 million Chinese are HIV-infected, more than 60 percent of them injection drug users. In Russia, 1 million people--more than in all of North America--are estimated to have HIV. Virtually all were infected in the past eight years. Three-quarters are under 30. More than 90 percent shoot drugs.

The good news is that injection-driven epidemics are relatively easy to contain. Participants in needle-exchange programs show none of the ambivalence associated with behavioral initiatives to increase condom use: Almost no drug user chooses to share needles if offered another option. Ongoing treatment with methadone, widely tested in developing and industrialized countries alike, has been shown to reduce both injection and drug-related crime. More broadly, researchers evaluating the full spectrum of efforts to prevent HIV and other harms among drug users--which includes peer education, syringe exchange and safer injection rooms, methadone maintenance and overdose prevention--have demonstrated positive outcomes in trials from Australia to Belarus.

The bad news is that evidence of effectiveness has so far proven no match for ideology. Public health efforts to offer drug users options other than abstinence, whether in the United States, Asia or the former Soviet Union, have frequently taken a back seat to criminal enforcement campaigns or languished for years in perpetual pilot-program status.


[The International Narcotics Control Bureau] has lambasted reduction of criminal penalties for cannabis in Spain, criticized medical journals for publishing studies showing the therapeutic benefit of marijuana and even suggested that politicians who campaign for more liberal drug policy might be prosecutable for violating convention restrictions against inciting drug use. The INCB response to what it terms "the crusade for harm reduction" has often been to equate it, erroneously, with drug legalization, and then to condemn it: It has sharply criticized medical prescription of heroin in Switzerland, cowed Denmark into tabling plans for safer injection rooms and threatened to revoke Australia's license to cultivate opium for medical purposes upon learning of plans for a safer injection room in New South Wales.


Whether cause or convenient excuse, the UN conventions and related drug-control efforts are routinely invoked by countries seeking to explain why they fail to offer drug users anything but prison or forced abstinence. A UN survey of seven Asian countries with injection-driven epidemics noted that many governments do not support methadone, in the belief that it would contravene the UN conventions. In China, the UN's International Day Against Drug Abuse has become an annual occasion for gatherings in public stadiums that include virulent speeches by government officials, the public burning of confiscated drugs in enormous caldrons and condemnation of drug dealers to death to chants of "kill, kill" from the audience. A visit by Thai representatives to UN drug control director Antonio Maria Costa at the height of the Thai drug war yielded headlines in Bangkok trumpeting UN approval for the Thai approach. Russian Minister of Interior Affairs Boris Gryzlov recently told the State Duma that "total prohibition" of illicit drug use was "not the [government's] own initiative, but rather a responsibility to implement the UN Drug Conventions of 1961, 1971 and 1988.""

Tiananmen, 15 Years Later
The Tiananmen Victory
Nicholas Kristoff considers growing western engagement and the government's increasing tolerance for capitalist activity to constitute a victory over Communism in China. While I agree that reforms have taken place and that many Chinese are better off than they were a decade ago, I somehow doubt that those still suffering under the "fraying" Communist dynasty would agree that meaningful changes have occurred.

Yesterday, Chinese authorities released three Christian activists who had been detained for a month for daring to talk about their beliefs. Two had been charged with "disturbing public order" for trying to set up classes on Catholic morality, while the third was arrested during a harvest celebration. One of the ministers reported that he was only "lightly beaten," as though that were a good thing. Dozens of religious leaders and thousands of practitioners of Buddhism, Falun Gong, and other religions are still in prison. During September and October of 2003, 44 Falun Gong practitioners died under severe torture in detention centers and labor camps spread across 16 provinces. For the religious, China's revolution is clearly not "finished."

Chinese Communism is also alive and well when it comes to repression of free speech. In 1996, a survivor of the Tiananmen massacre compiled a list of political prisoners being held by the Chinese government and gave it to western human rights activists. He was charged with "providing state secrets to entities overseas" and spent almost nine years in solitary confinement until his release last week. Other activists have served sentences as long as 30 years for publishing newspapers, discussing structural reform within the Communist Party, or "counter-revolutionary" activities.

China has, to be sure, reformed quite a bit in the last 15 years. The economy is more open, people have greater choice of careers and residences, and the government is somewhat less repressive than it has been in the past. However, just as we wouldn't judge South Africa's apartheid regime based on the contentment of whites, we should not judge China based solely on the growing prosperity of the middle class. While protests still occur, it seems that many young Chinese have been lulled into complacence by the limited economic reforms and are not as motivated as previous generations to fight oppression. Meanwhile, thousands of political prisoners languish in "re-education labor camps," corruption and government graft thrive, and political reform stagnates.

Unfortunately, I don't agree that political change could come to China at "any time." Democratic nations and their citizens must make a greater effort to trade with China and circumvent their powerful censors to bring the ideas of freedom and self-rule to the Chinese people. They need to get excited about democracy again, and that may require violence. I agree that greater involvement and exchanges with the citizens of many countries against whom the U.S. has sanctions might bring some limited reform to those countries as well. But that alone has not been enough in China, and will not be enough elsewhere in the world. If we want a revolution in China, we must continue to help foment one, and declaring that "China today is no longer a Communist nation in any meaningful sense" is not going to help capture the righteous anger that has brought real reform to other parts of the world.
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Tuesday, June 01, 2004

In which liberalism steps off the edge of the flat earth
About the new movie, The Day After Tomorrow, in which the earth's climate changes, turning 2/3 of the world into an uninhabitable icecap in a few days, MSNBC says that the most sudden climate change scientists can conceive would still take several decades to occur. The Australian reports that the movie's science is "so absurd that even the hysterics in the US green movement reportedly feared audiences would laugh it out of the cinema," but that "it will certainly frighten university students and schoolchildren" who have been "assiduously prepared to be frightened." The Arizona Republic describes the science as "much like when the Professor on Gilligan's Island designed a fusion reactor using only coconuts and Mr. Howell's after-shave." Even the New Yorker, long a refuge of liberal thought, dismisses the silly premise of the movie as more likely to harm the level of debate about the environment than to help it. Moveon.org, however, calls The Day After Tomorrow "the movie the White House doesn't want you to see" because "an unparalleled opportunity to help people do something to prevent a climate crisis."

I understand the urge to bring issues of conservation and better management of natural resources to the forefront of our political consciousness, but it's just dishonest to use a premise you and all of your allies admit is false--that environmental protection measures are necessary to prevent imminent catastrophic danger--to advance your political agenda. Scare tactics do move people; that's why they make such good drama in movies. But people who try to influence the political process are, as they so often like to tell us, beholden to a higher moral standard than just getting the most money from the most consumers. They have a responsibility to tell the truth, and not to use propaganda that they admit is not representative of the real facts to get their message across. Preying on our basest fears is not an ethically sound method of political activism.

Moveon.org is not, to be sure, representative of the core of liberalism in the U.S. It has, however, become a significant source of political information and mobilization for many on the left. And it is troubling that a group whose mission is to counter the dishonest propaganda of mainstream politics would stoop to pandering and misleading the public to advance its agenda.

(cross-posted at The Agitator)
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No More Free Airplane Lunches
Bush's Air Force One advantage
Here's a thought: why can't we just make a law saying that no politician may campaign for reelection during any trip paid for with government funds? That way, he can make as many "official" trips as he wants, but he can't engage in "political" activities while on them. That means no rallies, no fundraising events, no bus tours, and no schmoozing with big money donors. If the White House refuses to make public its criteria for deciding which trips are "official" and which are "political," we should simply declare that any trip on which political work is done is automatically a political trip.

(cross-posted at The Agitator)
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Surprise! People Don't Want to Die!
In Oregon, Choosing Death Over Suffering
Those of us who realized that legalizing assisted suicide in Oregon would not lead to a Jim Jones-style mass death can feel somewhat vindicated, as concrete numbers are beginning to show the limited use of the law. Of the 67 people who were given prescriptions for lethal drugs in 2003, 42 eventually used them to end their lives. The Oregon Department of health reports that since the law was passed in 1997, 171 patients with terminal illnesses have killed themselves using prescribed medications, while 53,544 Oregonians with the same diseases died of other causes during the same period. That's 0.003% of all deaths from the covered illnesses. Even conservative opponents of the original law are starting to come around, seeing that their fears of children pressuring their parents to off themselves to save on medical costs or disabled people being euthanized without their consent have not come to pass. Hopefully, Oregon will be an example for other states to recognize the right to choose the time and manner of one's own death.
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Big Shoes to Fill
I'll be guest blogging this week at The Agitator while Radley Balko is attending the obesity summit this week. So if you're not getting enough of me here, check it out.
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Monday, May 31, 2004

Don't Shoot the Messenger
Postmen can refuse to deliver 'extreme' Euro election leaflets
If you want to get your political literature to readers in the UK, better use Federal Express, because according to a recent court ruling, British postal workers don't have to deliver your mail if they disagree with your political message. Royal Mail, which is notoriously unreliable anyway, is required by law to distribute one election mailing from each candidate for free to eligible voters under the Representation of People Act. However, the Royal Mail workers' contract contains a "conscience clause" which allows them to refuse to deliver mail expressing opinions to which they are ethically opposed. The Communication Workers' Union (CWU) claims that the "conscience clause" means that the Royal Mail service must dispatch a different postal carrier to deliver political pamphlets if the assigned worker feels uncomfortable doing so.

This issue has come to a head recently because many postal workers are refusing to deliver mail from the British National Party (BNP) about upcoming local and EU elections. A CWU spokesman stated, "There is a duty to deliver these leaflets but clearly a lot of our members have problems with them... People have consciences and they are refusing to deliver this sort of stuff to homes our service has to go to day in day out, 52 weeks a year." The BNP is the largest far-right political party in Britain, opposing most foreign aid and immigration and calling for a return to traditional British values at home. The party has frequently been accused of bias and race bating, and in this election, are hoping to win many seats in local and national governments. Their opponents call them Neo-Nazis, but the fact is that they are a registered political party, entitled to the same rights as any other.

In Britain, it is a criminal offense to distribute literature designed to incite racial hatred. The BNP's leaflet for the upcoming election features, among other things, an image of an Arab man burning the British flag. It also refers to Britain's liberal asylum policies as a "terrorist time bomb." Opponents of the BNP claim that the pamphlet is meant to spur violence against Arabs and other minorities. However, CWU members claim that even if the pamphlets are legal--and the British government has said that they are--individual Mail workers have no obligation to deliver them if they find them offensive.

It makes me wonder what other sorts of mail the CWU might be withholding. Does a conservative Christian mailmain have to deliver issues of Playboy? Does a Jehovah's Witness have to deliver notices of an upcoming blood drive? Can a homophobic mail carrier refuse to deliver mail addressed to a gay couple jointly on the grounds that doing so implies acceptance of gay cohabitation? The point is that there are potentially an unlimited array of claims one could make if postal workers only have to deliver mail they agree with.

The reason that Britain allows for free mailing of political literature is the same reason that we have free speech in democracies: we want people to communicate freely about important political issues so that voters can make informed choices. But postal workers are confusing the non-partisan task of delivering such mail with tacit support for the mail's contents. If I write a letter to my Aunt Millie in London claiming that peanut butter makes for a better sandwich than cheese, a postal worker with a peanut allergy can still deliver my letter. A mail carrier can deliver a free sample of a product she dislikes to its proper recipient without endorsing the product. Similarly, if I write up a pamphlet stating that immigration harms the British economy, a mail carrier who supports higher immigration need not agree with me to deliver my pamphlet. There is no reason that postal carriers can't tune out the message of political mailings just as they do the dozens of other pieces of mail that don't conform with their beliefs. This is a thinly-veiled ploy to limit the reach of an unpopular political party, and it needs to stop. It is not a violation of one's conscience to help people one disagrees with to communicate. Especially when facilitating communication is these people's job.
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Not only did the fall of communism get rid of those icky gulags...
...but apparently, the food is better too
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Friday, May 28, 2004

Police Abuse Resistance Education

This handy-dandy guide to dealing with a police encounter will help you to protect yourself from violations of your civil and constitutional rights. Plus, you get the satisfaction of sticking it to the man, even if you haven't done anything wrong.

(via Radley Balko)
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Austrian Animals Get a Break
Austria tells animal abusers: Get stuffed
Most industrialized western nations think nothing of keeping thousands of living, sentient animals shackled in tiny cages for months, sometimes years at a time; stuffing them with garbage and antibiotics; pumping them full of hormones and sedatives to keep them fat and lethargic; and finally killing them. All in the name of providing humans with cheap, tasty food that, in most of these countries, their already bulging waistlines don't really need. Austria's new law, while not perfect, addresses many of the worst abuses of livestock and other working animals. The high fines make it clear that the government is beginning to take the ethical obligations we have towards animals under our care quite seriously, and I hope it will send a message to others that torturing animals for personal gain is not acceptable. Here's hoping that other nations follow suit.
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Thursday, May 27, 2004

Pulling Our Heads Out of the Iraqi Sand
James Taranto, in his quest to make those of us who criticize U.S. policy on Iraq look like whiny jackasses, has officially gone off his rocker. I agree that the press is overwhelmingly negative about the war, and that we don't hear enough news about local elections and rebuilding schools, but it's also clear that the incidents at Abu Ghraib have added to international outrage about our actions in Iraq. Whether he believes it's justified or not, international consumers' willingness to buy American products is affected by the perception that the American government allows the torture of prisoners.

I agree the Madonna thing was a stretch, unless there's some indication from her people that that's what she meant. But that's entirely different from mentioning our current trials for maltreatment of prisoners during an article about a contemporary speech praising those who prosecuted war criminals and former concentration camp guards at Nuremberg. Are the two situations the same? Obviously not. Our soldiers were not on a mission to exterminate anyone, nor were they performing widespread torture. The vast majority of our soldiers are brave, honorable, and follow both the rules of war and the dictates of human decency. However, I would put money on the fact that when Rhenquist was writing his speech, he considered how his words would be received in the post-Abu Ghraib political climate. And that's a relevant, valid angle from which to analyze it.

The conservative media, much as I appreciate the alternative voice, have a tendency to see everything as a conspiracy to mold the weak American masses into turning their backs on the American way of life. Sorry to burst Taranto's bubble, but just because most journalists will vote for Kerry this fall, that doesn't mean that they're all always out to get you. Most of them are just trying to report the facts from an angle that will get people to read their stories, and many do a remarkable job writing interesting pieces. Questioning our government--even, perhaps especially, during times of war--is our duty as citizens. And analyzing the way our country is perceived by the world and how that will afect us is the duty of journalists and politicians alike. Just because Taranto and his ilk want to pretend it isn't happening or that it doesn't matter, much of the world is unhappy with us right now, and that has ramifications for the American way of life. It's not a "kinky", pornographic "addiction" when the press questions how we and others are reacting to the latest proof that America isn't always a bastion of freedom and moral integrity. Ignoring it will not make it go away.
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Wednesday, May 26, 2004

Technology Makes Me Feel Special
Gmail Supply and Demand
I am, apparently, in possession of a very hot commodity. That's right: I am amy.phillips@gmail.com. Moreover, I have two invites that I can use to give others a crack at an account before they go public. I have no idea when that will be, but for now, I'm enjoying feeling special.

Really, my brief feeling of superiority is all the proof Google needs that their marketing strategy is working. At this moment, a gmail account is sort of like a diamond. There is no actual shortage of them, but because there are only a few on the market, we are lead to believe that they are something elite, and that if we don't act now, we won't be able to get one. Those who have one feel elite, and those who don't want to join that elite and are willing to pay to get it.

Granted, this is a little more true with email addresses, where the best ones--amy.phillips as opposed to amyp2380 or aphil207--are a limited supply. But just as few of us care that our phone numbers aren't 222-2222, as email become more and more ubiquitous, having 572 in your email address will be no more a barrier than spelling your name Aimee instead of the more common Amy. It's just about cachet.

It might matter a little more to businesses, but even there, I see no reason that consumers would be more likely to hire plumber@gmail.com than plumber42@gmail.com. Are we now envisioning a future in which consumers randomly email people whose addresses make it seem that they are in the business of providing goods or services? And even if all you're after is an easy to remember address, I'd be more impressed to retain mail@plumbing.com anyway.

In any case, I'm pondering what to do with my invitations. There's a vast marketplace of opportunities to swap them for something cool. There's always eBay, which has been so good to me in the past. But while the perpetually broke capitalist in me ponders ways to cash in on my good fortune, my contractarian sensibilities tell me that I should do what Google asked me to. Specifically:

"Invite a friend to join Gmail!
You have 2 invitations left
Thanks for using Gmail and helping us improve the service. We're ready to expand our test to a few more users, and because you've been a trusted early tester of Gmail, we're looking for your help. Please invite a few more people who you think would like Gmail and could help us make it even better."

What that means to me is that I should invite trusted friends who want or need a new email address and who will use it in ways that will help Google get a sense of what services we need. And while that may be the guy offering to "be my slave "for ONE whole week", it's more likely someone I know. Perhaps I'm overthinking this...

In any case, I'm enjoying my false sense of superiority right now. And if anyone wants to send me huge movies or iTunes playlists or whatnot, you can reach me at amy.phillips@gmail.com.
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Monday, May 24, 2004

Practical Environmentalism
Consider the Effect Of Wind Power on Birds
If someone had suggested scrapping efforts to expand wind power in favor of using more oil and coal for fuel, I'm sure this guy's counterpart from a mining state would have written in to the Post outraged at the effects that mining and transporting fossil fuels has on birds. And that's my chief problem with most environmentalists: they have very few constructive solutions. They complain that human action harms the environment, but they leave us no way out of the problem that allows human progress to continue.

It's all well and good to say that we should take better care of the environment and try our best not to destroy any more wildlife than we already have. Many of us take the admonitions to turn off the lights when we leave the room and eschew the plastic bags at the grocery store to heart. But it's time to face the fact that many Americans never will, and that many people here and around the world worry more about what they will eat and where they will sleep tonight than they do about whether their lifestyles contribute to the depletion of ozone. Most people are self-centered, and other than a token effort at recycling (I'm always amazed at how our environmental campaigns seem to have dropped the far more important but more difficult "reduce" and "reuse" from their slogans), simply don't think the problem merits their concern. Moreover, empirical data on helping the environment have shown that places with higher levels of technological development are more likely to be concerned about the environment and invent new technologies to help preserve it, but environmentalists still want to curb technological development.

I'm sorry if bird migration patterns will be affected by wind farming. Although, if we're talking about unintended consequences, we should remember the case of the Florida power plants that environmentalists once told us were bad for manatees, but that have in fact created areas of warmer water that protect manatees during cold winters and have encouraged the creation of additional manatee sanctuaries. In fact, the power plants have replaced manatee habitats in the south destroyed by previous human development; it's a classic case of technology saving us from technology. In other words, not all changes made by humans end up being negative. But even if migratory birds are harmed by wind farms, if wind power can reduce our dependence on fossil fuel--and I have no idea whether it can, but it seems worth a try--that will help stop far more devastating negative effects on the environment in the future. Human beings are never going to stop using and changing the earth to make our lives easier and better. The environmental lobby needs to stop chasing the fleeting hope of a luddite society and embrace the mixed blessings of technology that can help save both the future of human development and the planet we call home.
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