The other thing is that a needle is extremely easy to fabricate from readily available materials.
It is also possible to sterilize a needle with alcohol, and boiling water.
It seems to me that if you were an IV drug user, an important rule would be “Don’t share needles.” Assuming that you must in order to get a fix, why not take sanitary precautions?
The fact that this does not happen goes to irresponsibility. Putting needles in those hands doesn’t make any sense to me.
Assuming for a second that I wanted to be an IV drug-user it wouldn’t take me much effort to obtain a lifetime supply of clean safe needles.
Helping a drug user use drugs isn’t helping that person. If you want to help them, help them in a meaningful way.
Every needle exchange program I have read about requires a junkie to turn in an old needle for a new needle, hence the word “exchange.” This would make their disposal safe. You presented one of the problems that needle exchanges are designed to fix, and your solution of doing nothing does not follow your acknowledgment of the problem. Junkies dispose of needles all the time, I presume, better to exchange them. I can’t even conceive of a responsible way to individually dispose of an infected needle.
Well Bunny, I guess you just chose to ignore the part about the gun exchange where your isssue was directly addressed. I dispose of the needles I use on the farm by dropping them into a plastic coke bottle. When it gets full I’ll screw a cap on it and put it in the garbage.
Hey part of the time I live on the Upper West Side myself, and you know what: there are no situations that I have encountered that would not have become more dangerous if I had been carrying. I did get sort of mugged over here in St. Petersburg, and I did feel the anger and all toward the perp that we are told is healthy, but I can tell you that if I had had a Glock that I could have pulled, the outcome would have been much worse than it was. There really isn’t magic in guns that will make the carrier powerful. JDM
But in NYC and other big cities, plastic bottles are recyclable and are taken from the garbage by the homeless. They would then be tempted to open the bottle and discard the needle on the ground to perhaps get the nickle the bottle affords. So, if the government gave out needle disposal bottles, would that be allowed? Or would that be assisting a junkie? Note: I don’t think the government, which is the people, should be in the business of making moral judgments about diseases. Sounds self-defeating to me.
(I stil don’t know what you mean by me choosing to ignore something).
In other words, “We can’t stop it, so we might as well promote it”? Rubbish. I don’t understand why you think a Government agency should be able advocate the breaking of it’s own laws.
Mr. Bunnyhurt…
Yes, it’s always the religious folk. Religion, religion, religion, the cause of the universe’s problems.
What about “don’t use the needle in the first place”?
The Government is in the business of making LAWS, though, and it says that IV drug use is against the law. Or are you denying the fact that heroin is illegal?
Given the fact that it’s not legal, I can’t see the legal justification in allowing someone the opportunity to perform an illegal act. Perhaps you can explain it to me?
Well Brian, when I lived in NYC I wasn’t innoculating all that many livestock, and didn’t have the resultant needle disposal problems that seem to afflict urban farmers.
I do think that sharps containers aren’t too hard to come by. Failing that you could put them in a tupperware container labelled “Warning Biohazard.” If you wish to be a super responsible urban rancher, after innoculating the herd grazing on 48th and 5fth, you could put all the needles in a tupperware container. Mix some Bondo, and poor it in. You now have a safe brick you can toss.
I hope that helps you with your concerns on this.
As for needle exchanges:
The reasons are the same as for why we don’t exchange allow criminals to exchange old crappy guns that don’t kill that well and are a danger to the user for clean modern guns that kill efficiantly and reliably.
Really? I thought New York had some of the strictest gun control laws in the nation. (Not as strict as Washington DC or California, of course, but still pretty strict from what I hear.)
Quite strict. It took me forever to get a household permit. (I do not have a carry permit.) Unfortunately, one of the laws most broken by lawbreakers is the one about registering one’s handgun, so potential bad guys are not encumbured by such things.
It’s better now – crime is down, and you are a lot less likely to be shot for no reason unless you happen to be a dark-skinned immigrant. But man, during the late 80’s into the early nineties, it was pretty brutal even if one didn’t live in a particularly bad neighborhood.
I think you may be underestimating just how difficult it is to get off heroin once you’re on it. It isn’t simply a psychological addiction, it is a physical craving. Your body actually adapts to the presence of the drug in your bloodstream and as such trying to wean yourself off it once you have developed a physical addiction (which can happen extremely quickly or over time, it varies) can be an extremely painful experience. I’m talking restlessness, muscle and bone pain, insomnia, diarrhea and vomiting, shivers, and in some cases hallucinations. All of this can happen within hours of your last hit, if you are a regular user. I’m sure you are aware of all this, I just wanted to set the context to try and help illustrate why some people simply don’t have the physical strength to quit. Here is a good site which details the symptoms of withdrawal and gives additional information about how addictive heroin is and research into treatment for it. Also, from the site
It logically follows that, amongst those who simply cannot quit (and there are plenty of 'em), the availability of needles results in far safer use and since they are going to use heroin whether we like it or not and since we can’t very well let them all die of blood borne diseases, a needle exchange program is an extremely beneficial program for all those who would be most likely to use it ie. untreatable heroin addicts.
As such, I don’t believe that the government is breaking its own laws in giving people clean needles. In the long run they are protecting both the general population from the spread of blood diseases which can be caught from dirty needles and protecting the addicts from themselves. One could stick to the letter of the law and say that under no circumstances could the government undertake actions which may undermine related laws but to apply that view in this case would be to overlook the root of the problem and cause more harm than good.
*What about “don’t use the needle in the first place”?
The Government is in the business of making LAWS, though, and it says that IV drug use is against the law. Or are you denying the fact that heroin is illegal?
Given the fact that it’s not legal, I can’t see the legal justification in allowing someone the opportunity to perform an illegal act. Perhaps you can explain it to me?*
REPLY: By the way, your “Don’t use the needle” argument is not a solution to the disposal of a needle, which presumes a needle. But, I suppose a junkie could reply, “What about minding your own business?” The “don’t bother” argument is a two-way dirt road.
Also, the other reasons are circular. Example: A. Heroin is outlawed by we, the people, to protect our children and we, the people, from heroin abuse, and diseases from using needles. B. So, we, the people, can’t seemingly contradict ourselves about needle usage or exchange, even though it would be in the best interests of we, the people, to prevent disease from festering under our noses. Afterall, what would we, the people, tell the children about the reasons for outlawing heroin?
NOTE: The goverment is in the business of eradicating communicable diseases.
In other words, AIDS gives some people a primary reason to ban heroin, and this means to them that we can’t remove the stigma, which provides a natural punishment to it to be evil. I disagree, because it contradicts itself. Also, it begs the question because we have also explicitly assumed that needles can’t be exchanged for public health reasons because it would facilitate a crime.
COMMENTARY: These types of arguments sound morally RELIGIOUS to me, and they certainly aren’t logical (and they remind me of hemp issues–which say that can’t utilize unsmokable hemp for paper, because it is illegal! Well legalize it for paper then, duh.). I would even go so far to suggest that many have assumed a moral attitude about laws. In my view, laws are based on common sense, and are not fixed or immutable. (They are not heaven sent). Also, the government is not in the business of making laws as a reason to make laws. That is again begging the question, and raises many other questions if we assume that a prevention cannot facilitate a crime. What about guns, which are illegal to discharge in city limits, and are often used in crime? What about radar detectors? Et cetera, et cetera…
BOTTOM LINE: Needles are not drugs. If it makes it any easier to fathom, try imagining the Swiss plan that gives heroin directly to addicts to monitor them and prevent theft and robbery. They report a high cure rate using this method because it puts the dealers out of business.
The government (and doctors) can be said to promote and endorse addiction by allowing pain medications to be sold (If they are proven to be addictive, why sell them at all?). In other words, why not just suffer pain like junkies suffer their exposure to AIDS?
And which have been fully completely, and to the point of nausea addressed.
Yeah, I suppose he could. I’ll be sure and use the “mind your own business” line the next time I encounter a cop after I polish off a fifth of bourbon and go cruising down the highway at 120 MPH. I’m sure it’ll work.
Get real.
I see. Perhaps an attempt to restate what you said with clarity might read “The ends justify the means.” A little wrong is ok if it serves the greater good? Sorry. That doesn’t work.
Really? I think you read that wrong. The government is actually in the business of eradicating commies.
Anyway. No. The government is neither in business, nor is it the government’s mission to eradicate disease.
False! Heroin was illegal long before HIV became commonplace.
??? That’s incoherent. No. It’s not even right either. THe main problem with heroin is not HIV. It’s that once you become addicted, you will spend all your money, hurt the ones you love, sell your soul, and coommit most ant crime to get another fix to the destruction of yourself and all those around you.
You have utterly and miserably failed to put your figure on the contradiction then Bunn-Bunn.
What question is that? You haven’t mentioned one, and I read on and didn’t see one either.
Yes, for the same inherently obvious reason, that a young carjacker can’t take his beaten up revolver and exchange it for a new one at the local PD.
“But that revolver is dangerous?” you whine mewlishly. “It could blow up in his face when he pulls the trigger to kill somebody he’s robbing. That would injure him needlessly and create a public health problem that we would have to deal with? Why don’t we admit that there will always be robbers? For heaven’s sake, let’s make sure they have safe, well-maintained guns. Lordy, lordy. enogh people get hurt and killed during robberies. Why we do want some poor robber to get his hand blown off needlessly by a faulty handgun?”
My father has a great line when people try to pull a fast one on him, or play these nonlogic arguments.
He laughs in their face and says “get fucked.”
[quote]
COMMENTARY: These types of arguments sound morally RELIGIOUS to me,
[quote]
Well, that’s good. We wouldn’t want them to be imorally religious, now would we? It seems that what your saying is that not only are these arguments correct and right (morally,) but also that we have God on our side! (religious.) It’s comforting to know that we’re so secure. I feel so validated. Thank you. Preach it, brother!
Ahhhh. Ancient Chinese wisdom. Just because you do not understand It, young Bunnyhopper, does not mean that it is incomprehensible.
As opposed to Darth Vader and the Evil Empire who like to pass immoral laws?
What laws are you suggesting are common sense? The laws of physics. Security law? Tax law?
No. you got that right. But while they exist they apply to everybody equally. Otherwise, it’s not a law. It’s a suggestion.
Some people think the 10 Commandments were heaven sent. I wasn’t aware that they had been conclusively proved wrong.
Can I have some of what you’re smoking so I can understand that?
What question is that? Is it “What is the Matrix?” “Who shot JR?” What F***ing question?
Hmmm. A prevention cannot facilitate a crime? A prevention cannot facilitate a crime? What does that mean? Let’s see. “If we prevent a crime, then he have not helped it occur”
That seems like an immutably accurate statement to me. Why would you assume there is a problem with that assumption?
Well probably we shouldn’t allow criminals to trade in their old guns for new ones, hmmmm?
Not federally illegal. Can’t buy them in jurisdictions in which it is illegal to use them.
You figured that out?
Ahh. We must inform the scientists that it is actually the dealers that cause addiction and not the drugs themselves. Who would have guessed?
I was directly involved in the establishment of the first AIDS councils and needle exchange programmes in Australia. Let me assure you that there was no altruism behind our governments chosen course - every single decision made was made in order to stop HIV (or HTLV3, as it was then known) spreading from marginalised groups (ie gay men and injecting drug users) to the mainstream population.
The implementation of our HIV containment policy gave a voice to groups in our society which had never been previously listened to in any significant way - men who have sex with men, sex workers, injecting drug users.
15 years on, the very thing which catalysed the introduction of these public health policies is just another health education issue. The rampant fear of HIV/AIDS reaching epidemic proportions in the mainstream population is gone. But the voice given to those previously marginalised groups can never now be silenced.
We are about to open Australia’s first government funded, medically supervised injection room. That’s something I have a lot of misgivings about, even though I’m one of the people who wrote submissions for the original needle exchange programme. My personal viewpoint is that while the provision of syringes, sterile water, and alcohol swabs (these are provided in “fitpacks” here - the used syringe is inserted into the original container in a way which makes it impossible to extract it without breaking it), spending huge amounts of taxpayer money to ensure that immediate medical care is available to injecting drug users who overdose is pushing the envelope of public health issues and coming perilously close to making the government responsible for eliminating a risk that is inherent in the still illegal activity of injecting drugs.
Our methadone programme is no longer aimed at weaning people off opiates. Where once the goal was methadone reduction and eventual abstinence, we now pursue methadone maintenance and controlled use. I think we have overshot the mark. We have “normalised” illegal drug use and all its social impacts and financial costs in this society.
Needle exchange programmes no longer require you to “exchange” (which is why the park across the road is a no-go area for every child in this neighbourhood). 7 years ago, many needle exchange programmes collected more syringes than they distributed - ie clients were returning used syringes obtained from the needle exchange programme plus those obtained elsewhere. Sadly, this is no longer true.
I believe that needle exchange programmes still have a valuable role to play in public health, but we seem to have lost sight of the public health issues and started to focus on the user’s rights issues, and I personally believe that to be a very slippery slope.
The paragraph with something missing should read :
My personal viewpoint is that while the provision of syringes, sterile water, and alcohol swabs (these are provided in “fitpacks” here - the used syringe is inserted into the original container in a way which makes it impossible to extract it without breaking it) can still be more than justified on public health grounds, spending huge amounts of taxpayer money to ensure that immediate medical care is available to injecting drug users who overdose is pushing the envelope of public health issues and coming perilously close to making the government responsible for eliminating a risk that is inherent in the still illegal activity of injecting drugs.
“Begging the question” is the common name for a fallacy where the conclusion is assumed in the premise, such as, “Heroin is illegal for private bad-health reasons, therefore public needle exchanges for public good-health reasons should be illegal.” The aforementioned is also a contradiction, as I said earlier, and may be a double fallacy, or even a triple fallacy if I had my way. (There are other names for begging the question, and another common example is: “God exists because it says so in the bible, and the bible is the word of God.” I like that one, because it means that most people love fallacies and can’t live without them).
Also, for your angry amusement, heroin was banned because so many people were spoon-feeding it to their babies and themselves between the years 1899 and 1914 in nostrum “soothers.” It was later banned from production because it was easily synthesized from morphine to be more efficient than morphine (which was given out like candy in clinics while a German company, Bayer, held the patent to heroin). It was then made illegal to prescribe on a “schedule one list” with marijuana and LSD and PCP, for unknown reasons, since many cancer doctors now want it reinstated. Oxycontin is currently heroin’s newest replacement, see my link above.
By the way, advising people against heroin because of AIDS is common. I have told many people myself that they should never try heroin, because it may lead to AIDS. That would be a primary reason because AIDS will kill you faster and more painfully and is incurable. The secondary reason is that it is addictive and may cause hepatitis (another reason for clean needles–hepatitis is highly contagious).
I’m saying that AIDS/hepatitis stygmatizes heroin, few will disagree. If so, then no wonder some people equate needle-exchanges, which are for their own long-term benefit, with glamorizing heroin. Destymatization=glamorization to many, I suppose.
Note: I can see now why you thought I ignored part of your post earlier. You insist on commenting on every part of someone’s post, as if you can debunk it as a totality. Hint: It doesn’t work for anyone, and just detracts from whatever valid point one may have.
I ripped your whole post apart because from top to bottom, from stem to stern, from left to right, en toto, and in parts, by implication, extension, deduction, and reason, it was total bullshit.
It was too much bullshit to attack in one piece.
Yes, you continue to ignore valid points. HIV is not a valid reason to avoid IV drug use, any more than HIV is a valid reason to avoid sex.
The problems are purely mechanical, and are easily overcome by a little forthought and prudence.
Your insistence that HIV is the primary problem with heroin is ludicrous. That portion is avoidable. The addictive and other life-destroying properties of heroin use are not.
Having sex has not been “evilized” because of HIV. Nor have hemophiliacs acquired a stigma. Your thesis that that it is HIV that attaches is a stigma to heroin use is therefore clearly an obvious falsehood.
Not the least problem is the buildup of resistance. It takes more and more heroin to get the same kick for a habitual user. The financial cost of feeding this addiction is enormous, and life ruining. Worse still, it can become life ending as the amount of heroin required to get a kick comes perilously close to a fatal dose.
The fact that there are medicinal properties of narcotics has nothing whatsoever to do with their recreational use.
Your ignoring of the gun metaphor is disingenuous.
BTW. You didn’t “beg the question” in a fallacy sense either.
Like many other Aussie kids, I grew up able to get a gun licence at age 15. You were asked why you wanted one - the standard joke was to answer “to shoot pigs” - you paid your money, and you got one. You were allowed to own any number of firearms which were not specifically prohibited by law.
25 years on, our laws relating to weapons are vastly different. It is now extremely difficult to get a gun licence in my state, and I’m not totally sure that’s a bad thing.
While our gun control legislation was finally introduced in response to the Port Arthur massacre, we had inadequate weapon control laws for years. I think we have gone a little bit too far with our current weapon control laws, but we have erred on the side of caution.
Weapon control laws in this country do not have much impact on the statistics relating to criminal activity involving the use of illegal weapons. Nor was it the original intention of our legislators that they should do so. Where those laws have had an impact is in relation to spontaneous acts of violence committed in the heat of the moment.
While guns are the most obvious weapon to discuss, we also have incredibly strict laws relating to the purchase of knives too. Mace and stun guns - or variations of either - have always been illegal here.
I know that there is a huge cultural difference between the US and Australia, but our current laws do not allow for the possession of weapons purely for the purpose of “self defence”. In particular, if you live in an urban area (as 95% of the population of this country does), you need a damn good reason to own a gun, and you need to comply with incredibly strict conditions regarding the ownership and storage of it.
People who procure weapons with criminal intent will continue to do so no matter what; the thing which our far more stringent weapons laws have reduced is the incidence of “reactive” shootings/stabbings - ie people who inflicted harm on another with a gun or a knife without malice aforethought but simply because the weapon was readily accessible at the time.
We haven’t got our weapon control laws totally right yet (the cooling off period as applied to security guards and the like is ridiculous), but we’re a hell of a lot closer to it than we were 10 years ago.
In this country, at this time, the onus is on the person seeking licensing to demonstrate that they have need of and are responsible enough to own and carry a weapon. We demand that and more of people wishing to drive; I certainly don’t think we should demand less of people seeking legal sanction to carry weapons and use them.
You didn’t rip my whole post apart, top to bottom, stem to stern, although you might actually imagine you did. You don’t even know what begging the question was. I was going easy on you as an educational project, remind me not to bother next time. I don’t think needle exchanges is a debatable issue, as does anyone with a clue (sort of like evolution and racism) notwithstanding your self-righteous vehemence about drugs. To prove something right or wrong, you need everyone to plainly see it. Hint: It is not an emotional victory.
