A/HRC/32/32 B. Providing appropriate services to address adolescent substance use 99. States should adopt appropriate measures to protect children from illicit drug use and involvement in the illicit drug trade.82 However, this must be read in the context of the protections afforded by the Convention on the Rights of the Child and other human rights obligations.83 Almost all States have obligations under the three United Nations drug control conventions, which must be read in conformity with concurrent human rights obligations.84 The Framework Convention on Tobacco Control contains specific provisions aimed at the protection of children and young people, and which complement the right to health. 100. States should provide prevention, harm reduction and dependence treatment services, without discrimination, and allocate a budget sufficient to the progressive realization of the right to health. These are not competing or alternative strategies but required components of a comprehensive approach to enable adolescents to seek the health services and information they are entitled to receive. All such services should comply with the availability, accessibility, acceptability and quality framework. 101. With regard to the prevention of substance use, children and young people should be provided with accurate and objective information,85 which should be available in easy-tounderstand formats or Braille. Scare tactics and misinformation are known to be ineffective, whereas building resilience and trust while focusing on those demonstrating risk-taking behaviours has delivered promising results. The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) has produced guidance on drug prevention standards 86 to be used when designing prevention policies and porgrammes. 102. Prevention cannot justify disproportionate infringements of adolescents’ rights, including their rights to privacy, bodily integrity and education. States are encouraged to continue to restrict and, when necessary, ban alcohol and tobacco advertising, which has too often targeted young people. 103. Substance dependence treatment must be tailored to the specific needs of adolescents. Adolescents must not lose their participation rights in any circumstance, including because of their substance use or dependence. Adolescents have the right to be heard when expressing opinions on their own health care and to give consent to treatment in accordance with their evolving capacities.87 Confidential counselling and information must be available without parental consent. All drug detention centres where adolescents are arbitrarily detained and suffer extreme abuses must be closed. 104. There is an alarming lack of HIV-related harm reduction services designed for adolescents who inject drugs, as well as multiple barriers to accessing such services, including age restrictions in law, and absence of data on injecting drug use among children and young people in most countries. 88 Technical guidelines on HIV prevention, treatment 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 Convention on the Rights of the Child, art. 33. Damon Barrett and John Tobin, “Article 33: protection of children from narcotic drugs and psychotropic substances”, in A Commentary to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, John Tobin and Philip Alston, eds. (Oxford University Press, forthcoming). See A/65/255, para. 13. See CRC/C/GUY/CO/2-4, para. 50 (d); CRC/C/ALB/CO/2-4, para. 64 (b); CRC/C/ROM/CO/4, para. 71; CRC/C/SWE/CO/4, para. 49 (a); and CRC/C/BGR/CO/2, para. 50. https://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/prevention/prevention-standards.html. Committee on the Rights of the Child general comment No. 15. Harm Reduction International, Global State of Harm Reduction 2012 (2012), p. 140. 21