On April 20, 2011 Autonomous Non-Profit Organization SPN “April Project” held a press-conference devoted to the problem of opioid substitution therapy (OST) lack in Russia in the Health Care Department of the Togliatti Mayor’s Office. The fact that Ivan Anoshkin, a drug user and a citizen of Togliatti, made a complaint to Anand Grover, the UN Special Rapporteur, about the lack of OST programs in Russia became a news topic for the meeting with journalists.

It is the second complaint to Anand Grover from Russian activists and substitution maintenance therapy advocates. Irina Teplinskaya, a community relations coordinator at the Andrey Rylkov’s Foundation for health and social justice, was the first person calling Anand Grover to oblige Russia to lift the legal ban on OST programs last year. Besides, a lawsuit from Aleksey Kurmanaevsky, a drug using citizen of Kazan, was filed last year with the European Court of Human Rights – he charged the state with failure to render medical assistance with the use of opioid analgesics – methadone and buprenorphine - according to a special method that have proved its efficiency throughout the world.

Despite the fact that the World Health Organization (WHO), the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNOC) and the Joint United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) have unanimously recognized OST programs as evidence based and WHO has included methadone in the List of Essential Medicines, Russian officials keep claiming that use of methadone causes raise in mortality from drug overdoses rather than contributes to solving drug abuse problem. Within the 54th session of the Commission on Narcotic Drugs Russian delegation headed by Victor Ivanov, Director of the Russian Federal Drug Control Service, tried once again to convince journalists that the fight against drugs is efficient measure of solving the drug problem (detailed information is in the video of the Hungarian Civil Liberties Union / HCLU). However, according to the UN reports, Russia is one of few countries with growing HIV epidemic.

In April 2011 in relation to the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon visit to Russia over 40 non-governmental organizations, working in the field of HIV and drugs, sent an open letter to the UN Secretary General calling to advocate for human rights oriented and scientifically based drug treatment and HIV prevention in the Russian Federation. “Neglecting the rights of people who use drugs, especially at the concentrated stage of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, will inevitably lead to serious health and social consequences for the society as a whole”, - the letter says. The signatories called upon Ban Ki-moon to remind the Russian Government of the fact that according to the UN official documents, needle and syringe programs and substitution treatment are among the nine core interventions to prevent HIV among injecting drug users.