should addicts be given free/inexpensive needles?

[buttons]

do you think addicts should be given free needles to avoid diseases such as HIV/AIDS and hepatitis?

you can find out about it here: http://www.avert.org/needle-exchange.htm

personally i'm all for it. don't know much about it but making someone with more knowledge can give us some insight.

[FlyingJesus]

Yeah we have a few places down here that do it. Aside from obviously keeping the users safer it means everyone around them is safer too, and making it a more public/open situation makes it easier for help programs and such to reach the people who need them

[-:Undertaker:-]

Absolutely NOT. Why should taxpayers, many being taxed to the hilt whilst trying to support their families, be forced to pay for the drug kits of what are mostly selfish criminals who also commit crime to feed their disgusting habit? If charities (VOLUNTARY) want to be stupid enough to help junkies and give them free needles then that's fine by me, but not a penny of taxpayer money should go towards them.

The next step in this insane logic is to hand the druggies free drugs because at least its 'safe' and hasn't been mixed.

[Empired]

Absolutely NOT. Why should taxpayers, many being taxed to the hilt whilst trying to support their families, be forced to pay for the drug kits of what are mostly selfish criminals who also commit crime to feed their disgusting habit? If charities (VOLUNTARY) want to be stupid enough to help junkies and give them free needles then that's fine by me, but not a penny of taxpayer money should go towards them.

The next step in this insane logic is to hand the druggies free drugs because at least its 'safe' and hasn't been mixed.

I assume you'd also say they should be made to pay every time they go into a hospital infected because of using an infected needle or because of an OD? Because surely we'd be paying for their treatment if they go into a hospital as well. Or at least we are in the UK.

I honestly have no idea what to think about this issue. I can see serious pros and cons to both sides of the argument and hop backwards and forwards with my opinion.

[-:Undertaker:-]

I assume you'd also say they should be made to pay every time they go into a hospital infected because of using an infected needle or because of an OD? Because surely we'd be paying for their treatment if they go into a hospital as well. Or at least we are in the UK.

I honestly have no idea what to think about this issue. I can see serious pros and cons to both sides of the argument and hop backwards and forwards with my opinion.

As I ideally support private healthcare I agree with having people pay for their own healthcare (and pay more if they have an unhealthy lifestyle, ie overweight/drug use/alcoholic) as I think people who look after themselves ought to be rewarded. But that is another issue.

Where does this stop? As I said, provide free needles and you're on the path of providing free drugs. Why should bad behaviour be normalised?

If people want to worry about others, start by worrying about people being refused life-saving cancer drugs despite having paid taxes all of their lives and having been upstanding subjects throughout their lives - worry about them and not the criminal junkies who'd steal your underwear if you weren't looking.

[FlyingJesus]

The next step in this insane logic is to hand the druggies free drugs because at least its 'safe' and hasn't been mixed.

This does also happen

[-:Undertaker:-]

This does also happen

Indeed, which is why to avoid the slippery slope you reject anything like it from the start.

[FlyingJesus]

Even though it happens because the people would literally die if they didn't

[-:Undertaker:-]

Even though it happens because the people would literally die if they didn't

They risk dying by taking drugs in the first place and injecting their veins with dirty needles. It's not the hand of God which injects them with dirty needles, it is they themselves who do so... who then leave them laying around parks and in bushes where children play. Absolutely disgusting practice.

[FlyingJesus]

If they leave them laying around in bushes then they don't get clean needles, it's an exchange. I don't think anyone's condoning heroin abuse, just agreeing that helping addicts to not die and potentially get the help they desperately need is rather nice