Posted on 09/23/2004 10:11:19 PM PDT by neverdem
Intravenous-drug users who spread disease by sharing dirty needles and engaging in unprotected sex are responsible for more than a third of all the AIDS cases in the United States and more than half of the new cases of hepatitis C. Addicts will continue to drive these epidemics until the country takes a more enlightened approach to drug treatment. That means discarding the laws that criminalize needle possession because such laws encourage addicts to share needles. It also means developing large-scale treatment programs that admit addicts right away instead making them wait months or years. A blueprint for such a program has been put forward in California, which has embarked on the most ambitious drug treatment effort yet seen in the country.
Many states still make it a misdemeanor to possess needles, and a few states actually direct sanctions at pharmacists who sell needles without a prescription. In contrast, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger of California courageously signed an important needle-access bill this week, similar to one that was vetoed twice by his predecessor, Gray Davis. The new law will allow pharmacists to sell as many as 10 syringes without a prescription to any adult in participating cities and counties. The law expires in 2010, when state authorities will evaluate its usefulness.
The state also needs to revisit an absurdly restrictive law that requires localities to declare states of emergency - over and over again, every two or three weeks - to run vital programs that let addicts exchange dirty needles for clean ones. These programs slow the spread of AIDS infections - without spreading addiction - and serve as a gateway to treatment.
Addicts seeking treatment in California are having an easier time getting it thanks to Proposition 36, which offers drug treatment to nonviolent drug offenders. In the last two years, more than 65,000 people have entered treatment; many of them would have otherwise gone to jail . A study describing how effective the program has been is due by year's end. But a report released just this week by a research group at U.C.L.A. provides reasons for cautious optimism. For example, roughly one in three people who entered the program completed it - which is par for the course. And about half the people being treated were participating in a treatment program for the first time, even though many had been addicted for a decade or even longer.
Outpatient programs are readily available, but there appears to be a shortage of residential programs, which are crucial for methamphetamine addicts. They make up the largest bloc of addicts and often need months to recover. Residential programs also help addicts of all kinds who live on the streets or in drug-saturated households where outpatient rehabilitation would be difficult. Criminal justice officials need to shed their biases against methadone maintenance for this program to succeed with heroin addicts, who are the most difficult to treat.
California is already learning that there are many more nonviolent drug addicts in need of treatment, clogging the jails and courts, than many of us thought. If the new regime rehabilitates even a third of those people, prison costs and blood-borne infections like AIDS should decline noticeably.
---Addicts seeking treatment in California are having an easier time getting it thanks to Proposition 36, which offers drug treatment to nonviolent drug offenders. In the last two years, more than 65,000 people have entered treatment; many of them would have otherwise gone to jail .---
The liberals liked this proposition so they didn't kill it in the courts like so many other expressions of the people's will!
To use clean needles and condoms take some personal responsibility, something that addicts have little of, and that's why they are addicts.
The Times blows it again. The users etc. are improving the retirement plans of morticans, and reducing CO² emissions. How bout them apples?
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Sep 21 2004 15:38:44
There is a fairly non-partisan collection of people, that favor Prop. 36, and the article says it seems to be working.
I would make an exception for meth users. These people are dangerous far beyond what we all know about alcoholics and most drug users.
A few months of heavy meth use can do permanent brain damage. So the idea of turning these people back into society is an unacceptable risk.
If they are set free, they should be tested freuently and one dirty test should return them to prison for a long time.
Why did people need a prescription for syringes in the first place? That is just stupid. Lots of diabetics and others need syringes. Heck, I used one the other day filling a radiator leak with epoxy. Had to do it quick, but it was way better than trying to jam it in the hairline crack with a brush or my hands.
It's amazing what people think THINGS do. Betcha the same people who would be horrified if guns were banned here are the ones most virulently against needle and condom distribution programs 'cause they're morally opposed to them.
Mike Savage went off the rails yesterday talking about how this will encourage kids to do more drugs.
Savage always seems to be going off the rails, like Howard Stern, but on the other end of the cultural spectrum. I caught his last show on MSNBC. I was trying call in about homosexuality and the spread of AIDS, but he had to tell a homosexual caller who insulted him that the caller should die of AIDS!
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