Civil society-a leader in HIV prevention and tobacco control

Abstract

Many civil society organisations (CSOs) have been at the forefront of identifying new ideas and implementing innovative models regarding health and health systems around the world. Their activities become highly charged, however, when they engage in advocacy efforts designed to influence change in policies and systems linked with more controversial or complicated public health issues. Policies, laws and regulations regarding illicit drugs and tobacco fall directly into that category. There is no doubt that the use of both kinds of substances can have the same health consequences-including ill health and death-yet they are approached in widely different ways. Smoking is legal to some extent in every country in the world, and is generally considered a matter of personal choice. Many people believe that efforts to limit tobacco use are coercive and impede on individual rights. Those who use illicit drugs such as heroin, meanwhile, are with few exceptions considered social deviants, misfits and lawbreakers. Many CSOs support comprehensive, government-funded prevention strategies coupled with non-punitive, non-judgmental programmes designed to help users change behaviour. Such strategies are designed to reflect and respond to the medically addictive nature of both tobacco and many illegal drugs. Proponents argue that not only are the public health benefits of expansive, well-conceived interventions potentially vast, but so too are the social and economic benefits accruing from lower rates of debilitating disease and premature death. To that end, many international, national and local CSOs are identifying the direct and indirect health consequences of tobacco and illegal drug use; proposing and advocating for strategies to limit their impact; and sharing information and resources with like-minded organisations elsewhere. This leadership role has helped influence and shape policy, especially in recent years. This paper examines civil society's involvement in efforts to change drug and tobacco policy in selected countries in Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union (CEE/FSU). It concludes that in Poland and Kazakhstan, in terms of tobacco control, and increasingly in Ukraine and parts of Central Asia in terms of harm reduction, multi-sectoral approaches are the most effective way to engage citizens and to implement comprehensive strategies to change behaviour by supportive measures, not punitive ones.