I have a chance to volunteer for a needle exchange program in downtown Spokane. Clean needles are provided for drug addicts. It was suggested that I would be perfect for it.
I imagine this is not something Mos are not very familiar with considering all the nasty moral overtones.

Service or enabling? What would the church say ... not that I give a flying fuck really.

Care to kick it around? What level are you at with this subject? Room for growth?

I think its fantastic! Good job mindlight, definitely service, IMHO.

I volunteered maybe 7 or 8 years ago. I quite enjoyed it, go for it.

I think it's a great idea and it's NOT enabling.
People are going to take drugs regardless. Would you rather they did it safely or unsafely? Would you rather they threw their used needles somewhere where your children play?

I luv you guys what a way to start my day. Intelligent people inspire me

I was in Switzerland in very early 80's when they started this stupid bullshit. My worthless god...like they want to save people from killing themselves...
If people were/are hellbent to destroy themselves by all means let them do it. In turn perhaps we could help to people so desperately need our help to survive.

People that have ADDICTIONS are not necessarily 'hellbent on destroying themselves'. You clearly have no understanding or empathy for people with addictions.
God forbid everyone have opinions like you and nothing would get done in the world.

"You clearly have no understanding or empathy for people with addictions"

You nailed it Elaine. Empathy for your fellow man is lacking in some people...lack of empathy allows people to be very judgemental and critical of other people foibles...I would think that those people would realize that no one is perfect and that we all struggle with our own issues.

just empathizing!

How does it feel like for you we refrain from helping children, adults in need and worry about clean needles?
it is a losing battle, brutally asserted by Governments.....

Wow.

Yes, quinlansolo, you are onto something:

Let's stop giving medical treatment and medicines to all lifestyle associated diseases like diabetes t2, heart disease, cirrhosis and anything related to obesity.

Did you break a collarbone because you went rock climbing? Stupid you - no medical treatment. That was a risky and poor choice for you to make. We reserve humane medical treatment for innocent people who get sick through 'natural' means.

Poor choices in what we put into our bodies should naturally be punished with death.

You are so smart.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/03/2012 09:08AM by frogdogs.

I run a medical practice...
I see mothers walking in with (not one, not two, not three) four Down Syndrome kids, a kid nine year years old, weighs 300lbs plus, and you are talking about I have no empathy?
My wife had breast cancer last year, presuming that I don't have any clue about medicine or value of human life is poor assumption.

I know about addictions.. having a rat-brain automatically entitles me host of addictions.

Nobody is punishing anybody with death, except the individual her/himself. The people I witnessed their demise in Switzerland or here couldn't be helped because they already tried it 101 time. OTOH, I see people (even in my practice) turned away for the lack of insurance or legal papers.
Tell me who deserves the help more;

A-People who are hell bent to destroy themselves
B-People so desperately try to get help to heal themselves.

PS; you might think I'm exaggerating the mother with 4 downs syndrome kids, I couldn't believe it myself, I asked my wife;
(she is the physician) "Is this for real"?

To leave her dead Cub behind?
I realize we R hu8mans and have developed empathy through our evolution. To what point?
To a point we are hell bent to save suffering 95 year old woman which wants to die, who cannot breathe her own.
Jack Kevorkian was my hero, a genuinely caring person.

Yea.. we thought Prohibition was a cool idea too..........

"I realize we R hu8mans and have developed empathy through our evolution. To what point?"

well it is evident to what point you have it!

so it is triage you are advocating?

you seem to think that the "hell-bent" people WANT to kill themselves...I sure am glad you are in the medical field so you can minister to all those healthy and unaddicted people...every one else can go to hell huh?

yeah I can see the level of empathy you have...

just observing!

I get it. Personal responsibilty.

Which is fine for the person taking the drugs to take personal respnsibility for themselves--but what about all the other people in her sphere unable to do that? Like her husband or son or daughter, or if not married, her sex partner?

Should they also be condemned to serious or chronic illness, like a lifetime of HepC, even death, because we thought it better not to give that mom a cheap, clean needle when we could?

Instead, we decided we would all like to pay for all of her downline destruction, when the rest of them all got sick and died on our doorstep?

Then legalize meth and heroin and be done with it?

You already have the some of the most lethal drugs on the market;
why not meth or coke? Or even perhaps weed? which is far less harmless than the drugs are legally on the market?

Legalize them all & tax them.

I applaud you, mindlight.

This is a medical issue, not a legal, criminal or moral one.

You are doing the right thing

Hum, and in answer to your question about legalizing meth and heroin, it's worth considering, "nuts" as that sounds. What if addicts could get legal prescriptions instead of getting them off the streets?

It would be expensive, yes, but would the sum total of the negative effects on society be as bad as they are now?

In general, the criminalizing of the natural human urge to seek altered mental states has been a spectacularly bad idea, wasting billions of dollars and contributing to massive violence and human suffering.

Needle exchanges are the first baby step in admitting that there are better ways to approach the universal human impulse to self-medicate mental pain, rather than throwing them in jail or letting them die from hepatitis or aids.

but cost effective

I think I learned from Steve that that is a Strawman argument :P

and put those tax dollars into Mental Health fields and education? OK

Put a support structure in and I am with you

wait, no. Not legalize them but regulate them



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/03/2012 09:18AM by mindlight.

Are you sure you can tell the difference?

Giving access to clean needles does not enable anything other than a chance that they will be able to do it without contracting HIV or HEP-C

Exactly.

Junkies are going to use no matter what, even at the risk of contracting an infection. Providing clean needles prevents the spread of these diseases and cuts down on abscesses.

Like frogdogs said, this is not a moral issue, it's a medical one.

They help cut down on some terrible diseases, but they are terrible places to meet women. Unless you want the kind that will take off with your TV set and watch in the middle of the night.

I guess here's my take on this discussion:

I think all drugs should de-criminalized. What people want to do to their own bodies is none of my business.

Drugs should be regulated and taxed. The prison industrial complex should be ashamed of themselves.

I think the needle exchange is a cool idea. I also think people who are stupid enough to share needles with other addicts shouldn't be surprised when they get something. But I think it's great that some people will give time & money to make sure the risk is smaller.

I have no problem with everyone having access to medical care, regardless of how they got sick or hurt. Income tax pays interest on the federal reserve debt. Eliminate the central bank and use income tax for something real like universal healthcare and housing.

I also applaud the central bank for scamming everybody out of their money. Good for the central bank. If not them, it would be someone else.

I do think anyone who tries to make the point that the paltry amount of money being used on the needle exchange program could be better used on something else simply has no idea whatsoever where most of their money is really going and sound silly.

IMO....I disagree with needle exchanges...UNLESS methadone or another "kick-the-habit" drug is being provided also.

To me it's enabling....not helping..

again....my opinion..

When you say you disagree with needle exchanges, are you saying you wouldn't participate or you don't think other grown adults should participate?

I'm saying that people/organizations should be enabling drug addicts by giving them clean needles....


unless, they are also getting methadone or something else to get them off of their addiction

I'm saying that people/organizations should NOT be enabling drug addicts by giving them clean needles....


unless, they are also getting methadone or something else to get them off of their addiction

So you think they should DIS-able drug addicts?

I think folks who want to self-medicate should be able to do so however they want, with whatever they want. It's their business.

I also don't think you should be forced to pony up money to help them stay disease-free.

But for you to try and stop other people who are donating their personal time & money from help addicts stay disease-free is as silly as missionaries knocking on doors selling temple recommends.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/03/2012 12:49PM by jesuscrisco.

"But for you to try and stop other people who are donating their personal time & money from help addicts stay disease-free is as silly as missionaries knocking on doors selling temple recommends."

I tried no such thing. The OP has for opinion(s) and I gave mine...

End of argument.....

...but combining methadone and heroin is a killer. You cannot get an addict to quit unless he or she wants to.

It's not enabling, it's preventing the spread of life-threatening infections, not just to other users, but to people that come in contact with them. Hep C is spread as easily as sharing a toothbrush with someone, if you didn't know.

OoC, what are your personal experiences with addictions, especially with IV drug users?

There is scientific research on this, some credible. Vancouver B.C. Was a city in one of the trials.

The challenge in choosing to be against clean needle exchange efforts is that it imagines all are lost and that this only impacts the individual. Our American culture has a mean streak, I doubt it would ever get so soft as to enable drug addicts.

How about using these projects to reduce the spread of disease. There is a for profit model there. Some drug addicts do break away, not the majority, but some do. They do so with help. People who don't help them, are just that, people who don't help them.