Injection Drug Use and HIV/AIDS

Health Canada's Response to the Report of the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network

In November 1999, the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network published a report entitled Injection Drug Use and HIV/AIDS: Legal and Ethical Issues. Funded by Health Canada under the Canadian Strategy on HIV/AIDS (CSHA), the report provides a legal and ethical analysis of care, treatment and support issues for people who use injection drugs and identifies measures to reduce the harm associated with injection drug use (IDU).

On World AIDS Day 1999, Allan Rock, federal Minister of Health, announced that Health Canada would provide a written response to the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network's report, which made 66 recommendations to the federal and provincial/territorial governments, health care professionals and institutions, researchers, pharmaceutical companies and others.

This document fulfills that commitment by outlining current and planned Health Canada actions to address the harm associated with IDU - specifically HIV and hepatitis C transmission and drug overdose. It also addresses issues of care, treatment and support for people living with HIV/AIDS and hepatitis C who inject drugs.

Health Canada's Response to the Report of the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network  PDF Format 106 KB