NEEDLING STOCKWELL DAY

Re: Needle exchanges for federal prisons urged, July 15.

As Voltaire said, "Common sense is not so common." Prison inmates
using ballpoint pens to inject drugs; inmates having 10 times the rate
of HIV and 20 times the rate of hepatitis C than the general
population; inmates being released into the community to infect
others; those infected costing $20,000 to $30,000 a year to treat, and
the government does nothing about it.

Any sane person, any sane government (even Iran has a needle-exchange
program) would immediately give these inmates a needle-exchange
program to reduce infections. But not our "enlightened" Public Safety
Minister Stockwell Day. Addicts, Day's press secretary states, "must
take responsibility for their own health."

If he believes that, he probably believes that the world is only a
little over 6,000 years old.

Herb Bjarnason

Morris