greg@legs.UUCP (Greg Ebert) (01/16/90)
> >My question to the Forum is How do you feel on the subject of given clean > >syrings to the IV drug user for the purpose of the general health. > Although I'm not a user, I strongly support the notion of providing sanitary syringes at no cost. From a humanitarian standpoint, those who are not fortunate enough to obtain clean equipment should not be forced to use unsanitary equipment and worry about hepatitis or AIDS, not to mention the misery they will endure should they contract one of these wicked diseases. Economically, it makes far more sense to spend a few dollars to avoid enormous medical costs in an already over-strained public health system. In addition, it is essential to educate IV drug users on safer techniques. Needles CAN be inexpensively sanitized and it is not mandatory to draw blood back into the syringe before injecting. I am saddened, that in our modern society, so many people insist upon making life so much more miserable for others. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength. -- G. Orwell, "1984"
trainor@sonia.math.ucla.edu (Douglas J. Trainor) (01/19/90)
In article <90012.162938ASA101@PSUVM.BITNET> ASA101@PSUVM.BITNET writes: >Hi Netlanders, > This is my first post here in a long time so be gentle ;-). >My question to the Forum is How do you feel on the subject of given clean >syrings to the IV drug user for the purpose of the general health. Yes, give them out. Buy them, give them out. Encourage others to do so too and to encourage appropriate government agencies to start helping. It's a start, a band-aid on a big wound, but better than no help at all. Drug treatment and welfare lines are so long, the process so complex, that vast numbers of people never start or get cut-off once they do start. Can you expect someone that may not know a permanent home or know how to read -- can you expect them to respond to a steady stream of complicated government forms via mail? How many people do their "8th grade" tax form ? How many get axed from government assistance every day ? I've often said that I'd be the perfect heroin addict, cuz you can stick me with needles all day, and I won't mind too much. I used to call syringes "shooters" when I was a kid. I used to make rocket-ships and complex scientific instruments out of them -- some took five weeks worth of shooters! I never shot up more than four times a week (I did that for 2 years); and then switched to just two a week (I guess about 10 years). One time I accidentally father got in trouble with the D.C. police. He was working late at some governement building, and when he got to the beat-up Pinto, the police were waiting for him. They were interested in the "shooting gallery" in the back seat -- shooters everywhere. I still get a kick out of imagining him trying to explain to the police -- that they were his son's used syringes for his allergies. It's not much different from being a heroin addict, I suppose. They got high off the heroin; I'd get high off a Slurpee(tm). I've overdosed countless times, and while under strict medical supervision with 100% unadulterated drugs. My "supply" was even cut off accidentally, which left the doctors scrambling. It's pretty neat when you're a kid and they make a drug especially for you, that's only for you and nobody else. Actually, I had two different designer drugs... One for each arm. douglas "It cannot be emphasized enough that the drug experience is not simply a social problem of today, or a chemically induced fantasy. Drugs are much more than that. They are a plot, a plan by Lucifer himself to destroy the work of Jesus Christ." -- Gerald Neils Pearson, _There Is A Way Back: The Story Of Mormon Youth And Drugs_
dkonerding@eagle.wesleyan.edu (Raphael Juarez) (01/19/90)
In article <50900@bbn.COM>, cosell@bbn.com (Bernie Cosell) writes: > }Well, Shane, as a study we read for a class last year put it, in > }Holland, once they gave out free needles to heroin users, they noted a > }decrease in the number of new users as well as an increase in the > }number of people who sought out help. i think that providing a > }service such as free needles goes a long way toward making people feel > }wanted and needed again. Hmm, I'd have to flame to answer that one. > Rather than having our tax dollars going to buy syringes, how about > having the first step be just to have the gov't stop interfering? I have only one thing to say: if the government provides free syringes to drug users, they must also provide free condoms to teenagers (and anyone else who wants them). Being a teen in high school, I know that there's a lot of sex-- more than most parents and government officials-- going on. Although we hear little about teens with AIDS, there's a large potential there, due to the enormous promiscuity. -- Raphael Juarez DKONERDING@EAGLE.WESLEYAN.EDU DKONERDING%EAGLE@WESLEYAN.BITNET An unlocked door is an invitation to enter, a locked one an invitation to break in.