... is the subject of an article in today's WSJ. HIV and Hep C infection rates are on the rise as heroin addicts share needles with each other. In the article, needle exchange is offered as a solution.
A solution for what? Heroin addicts are pretty much doomed. If the HIV doesn't get them, other secondary effects from the heroin will. The problem isn't the HIV or Hep C, the problem is the heroin in the first place.
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I spent some time looking up the statistics, and it looks like roughly 50% of heroin addicts eventually kick the habit. It would be nice if, after finally getting their lives together, that 50% didn't then turn around and die slowly of AIDS or liver failure.
The other problem is that the needle sharers are reservoirs of disease that can then spread to the general population. Eliminstion of a disease altogether is generally safer than quarantine.
I've seen stats that say only 10% escape the drug. Whether it's 10 or 50, the problem still isn't the needles, it's the addiction. I know it's harsh, but almost all of these people are using heroin because they can. Given government handouts, they don't have to do much to survive and if you're willing to live in filth, then heroin can be had on a fairly small income. If that income is available regardless of your behavior, you get what we've got right now.
Work has benefits far beyond the pay. It gives you expectations, pride, ambition, none of which you can maintain if you're on heroin.
So what is the end game here? Is it "curing" 50% of, say, a half-million heroin addicts or is it reducing heroin addiction down to tens of thousands?
"So what is the end game here? Is it "curing" 50% of, say, a half-million heroin addicts [the ones who don't die of the addiction] or is it reducing heroin addiction down to tens of thousands?"
OH, silly!
The objective is to spend as much tax monies as possible, and provide "jobs" to bureaucrats/party faithful ... and, of course, to do so "non-judgmentally".
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