Question by muellerdavidallen: Clean Needles Benefit Society and Programs Don’t Make Sense Do the premises support the conclusions?
CLEAN NEEDLES BENEFIT SOCIETY
USA Today
Our view: Needle exchanges prove effective as AIDS counterattack.
They warrant wider use and federal backing.
Nothing gets knees jerking and fingers wagging like free needle-exchange
programs. But strong evidence is emerging that they’re working.
The 37 cities trying needle exchanges are accumulating impressive
data that they are an effective tool against spread of an epidemic now in its
13th year.
• In Hartford, Conn., demand for needles has quadrupled expectations—
32,000 in nine months. And free needles hit a targeted
population: 55% of used needles show traces of AIDS virus.
• In San Francisco, almost half the addicts opt for clean needles.
• In New Haven, new HIV infections are down 33% for addicts in
exchanges.
Promising evidence. And what of fears that needle exchanges increase
addiction? The National Commission on AIDS found no evidence. Neither
do new studies in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
Logic and research tell us no one’s saying, “Hey, they’re giving away
free, clean hypodermic needles! I think I’ll become a drug addict!”
Get real. Needle exchange is a soundly based counterattack against an
epidemic. As the federal Centers for Disease Control puts it, “Removing
contaminated syringes from circulation is analogous to removing mosquitoes.”
Addicts know shared needles are HIV transmitters. Evidence shows
drug users will seek out clean needles to cut chances of almost certain
death from AIDS.
Needle exchanges neither cure addiction nor cave in to the drug
scourge. They’re a sound, effective line of defense in a population at high
risk. (Some 28% of AIDS cases are IV drug users.) And AIDS treatment costs
taxpayers far more than the price of a few needles.
It’s time for policymakers to disperse the fog of rhetoric, hyperbole and
scare tactics and widen the program to attract more of the nation’s 1.2 million
IV drug users.
PROGRAMS DON’T MAKE SENSE
Peter B. Gemma Jr.
Opposing view: It’s just plain stupid for government to sponsor dangerous,
illegal behavior.
If the Clinton administration initiated a program that offered free tires to
drivers who habitually and dangerously broke speed limits—to help them
avoid fatal accidents from blowouts—taxpayers would be furious. Spending
government money to distribute free needles to junkies, in an attempt to
help them avoid HIV infections, is an equally volatile and stupid policy.
It’s wrong to attempt to ease one crisis by reinforcing another.
It’s wrong to tolerate a contradictory policy that spends people’s hardearned
money to facilitate deviant behavior.
And it’s wrong to try to save drug abusers from HIV infection by perpetuating
their pain and suffering.
Taxpayers expect higher health-care standards from President Clinton’s
public-policy “experts.”
Inconclusive data on experimental needle-distribution programs is no
excuse to weaken federal substance-abuse laws. No government bureaucrat
can refute the fact that fresh, free needles make it easier to inject illegal
drugs because their use results in less pain and scarring.
Underwriting dangerous, criminal behavior is illogical: If you subsidize
something, you’ll get more of it. In a Hartford, Conn., needle-distribution
program, for example, drug addicts are demanding taxpayer-funded needles
at four times the expected rate. Although there may not yet be evidence of
increased substance abuse, there is obviously no incentive in such schemes
to help drug-addiction victims get cured.
Inconsistency and incompetence will undermine the public’s confidence
in government health-care initiatives regarding drug abuse and the
AIDS epidemic. The Clinton administration proposal of giving away needles
hurts far more people than [it is] intended to help.
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