We came here to the Russian Embassy to commemorate those who passed away due to the insane and
sinister drug war.
My country in the past four years has had over 40,000 deaths, including the lives of
many young people.
The current strategy has shown in my country, but it has also shown in Russia and has also
shown in most countries around the world, has not deterred young people from using drugs
or consuming drugs.
Russia is maybe the most obvious example that the war on drugs is a failure.
Russia is experiencing the fastest growing HIV epidemic, basically, among injecting drug
users in the world.
There are many people who are co-infected with TB and they don't get real effective treatment
neither for their drug addiction nor for TB or HIV.
The Russians want to persuade the United Nations Security Council and NATO to pursue a failed
policy of eradication in Afghanistan, which will further impoverish the lives of people
who are also already suffering.
The Russian government is doing this, I believe, in a way to divert attention away from their
own problems and their own failed policies in Russia, where methadone is not allowed
and legal exchanges are also prevented.
I come from a country that still practices the dead sentence for traffickers and drug
users.
More than that, I have a brother who has been struggling with heroin use for the past eight
years and it's been a really, really long journey for the entire family and for people
around that loves him.
And three months ago, my brother started the methadone program and for the first time in
his life, he's able to be proud of himself.
I'm here today to urge the Russian government to give all the drug users a chance to be proud
of themselves and to implement the methadone program in the country.
I'm an attorney from the U.S., a country where we have the highest incarceration rate in the
world.
And I'm here today because I want to commemorate not just those that we've lost to death
in the drug war, but those who we have lost, our brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers, those
who have lost friends to lives of incarceration in a country where our last three presidents
have been admitted to drug use and where most of these people or very many of these people
were members of a minority group.
I come here with such sadness and with such rage and that we still have these vigils every
year and that so many lives continue to be lost because of terrible drug policies, lack
of humanity, simple things like some of the signs, access to syringes, access to medicines
and it's heartbreaking.
Let this demonstration, which is not the only one going on in the world, there are several
cities also doing it, be a place for putting together the courage and the inspiration as
to move ahead and so that their lives have not ended in vain, but that we go on pushing
not only the government of Russia, but also governments all around the world to change
their strategies.
