DESERTING MORAL VALUES

SO drug users across Knox, Whitehorse, Monash, Maroondah and Yarra
Ranges will soon be able to dial a needle, presumably to accompany
their dial-a-pizza.

Your report (Herald Sun, June 16), says the service aims to reduce the
risk to users of blood-borne viruses, such as AIDS or hepatitis C.

We already have a needle exchange program. Why do we have to descend
to such bottomless depths of moral degradation that we can seriously
run this dial-up service.

What has happened to right and wrong issues which are obviously
ignored under the attractions of the taxpayer-funded $600,000 program?
Who cares about the message such options telegraph to our youth? The
cry "we must save lives" is hollow indeed when the "solutions" create
more opportunities to experiment with drugs.

The Box Hill-based Whitehorse Community Health Service would far
better serve the Australian community if it helped tackle the overt
and degrading drug dealing in Box Hill's streets. Our governments -
local, state and federal - prefer to turn a blind eye to the drug problem.

They trumpet the importance of internationalism and degrade our own
culture. Family breakdown is rife. Give our youth a chance of
regaining some self-esteem and pride in themselves, their community
and their country.

Australia is becoming a Disneyland. Along with deadly - not safe -
injecting rooms, we will soon have "Mr Whippy heroin" jingling down
our streets, bells and all.

Judi Bergin, Rowville