Ourview
Free
needles mean real help
Riverside County’s top health official,
Public Health Officer Gary Feldman, is pitting
his agenda against the sheriff and district
attorney in a battle over a needle exchange
program.
Feldman notes surging hepatitis C rates
among his top reasons for proposing allowing
drug addicts access to clean needles. Needles
are often shared by intravenous drug users,
which spreads fatal blood-born diseases
such as hepatitis C and HIV.
Programs that allow addicts to exchange
dirty needles for clean needles have already
been proven successful in California.
In 1990, San Francisco initiated an underground
needle exchange program. It was illegal,
but it operated with the express backing
of the mayor and the approval of police
and was found to be highly effective in
reducing risky behavior among drug addicts.
In 1994, the Journal of the American Medical
Association published research that led
doctors in Los Angeles to call for a similar
program that has also met with success.
The report included interviews of 5,644
intravenous drug users by researchers from
UC San Francisco. The researchers found
that as participation in the needle exchange
program went up, the percentage of addicts
who shared syringes went down from 66 percent
before the program’s initiation, to 35 percent
in 1994. The report also concluded that
the average age of intravenous drug users
had increased, while the number of first-time
drug users dropped dramatically — indicating
that needle exchange programs do not entice
young people into a life of drug abuse.
Riverside County is home to an estimated
12,000 intravenous-drug abusers, according
to the county Community Health Agency. About
60 percent of hepatitis C cases and 23 percent
of AIDS cases across the county can be attributed
to sharing syringes, rates higher than the
state’s according to county and state documents.
Based on the evidence from San Francisco,
Riverside Country could benefit from some
form of needle exchange program. Officials
need to shed their narrow-minded reaction
to the thought of accepting and dealing
with drug use. It is obviously not working
to outlaw all drugs and imprison those who
are found to be users.
We have a real problem on our hands and
we must do what we can to prevent diseases
from spreading from the drug culture to
the outside population.
“Feldman said the disease prevention benefits
are not limited to drug abusers, because
the infections they pick up are passed along
to the general population,” The L.A. Times
reported.
“It’s not as if the drug users aren’t sons,
mothers, fathers, and everyone else,” Feldman
told the L.A. Times. “They interact with
non-drug users every day.”
Drug use is a reality in our society. Paranoia
and criminalization are not the answers
to helping people with real addictions.
Everyone has their own addictions — some
of us have alcohol problems, others are
addicted to prescription medication, some
people tear their families apart because
they are addicted to work and money, but
these are more socially acceptable. We cannot
dismiss an entire group because we feel
like they are worth less. Handing out needles
is simply one step in the thousand mile
journey, but at least it is a step in the
right direction — that of acknowledgement
and compassion.
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