At an international conference on AIDS awareness on Monday, health experts voiced their opinion on the stringency of the use of certain drugs, which they said should be removed.

Experts from International AIDS Society, British Columbia Center for Excellence in HIV/AIDS and International Center for Science in Drug Policy raised issues saying that administering drugs via needle and syringes should help in cutting down the HIV rates.

“The criminalization of illicit drug users is fueling the HIV epidemic and has resulted in overwhelmingly negative health and social consequences”, they said.

They said that there is a need of revising the drug controlling policies. They will propose the regulators to make amendments in these policies, which restrict the administering of certain drugs. This leads to an enhanced spread of the virus.

Julio Montaner, President of the International AIDS Society and Director of the BC Center for Excellence in HIV/AIDS, stated that the experts across the world have been observing the deteriorating effects of these restrictions.

The researchers argued that the policies should be revised and framed on the basis of scientifically proven effects of these drugs.

They added that the policies should be absolutely free from political and personal prejudices.