SAFE NEEDLES NO HELP TO ADDICTS

THE leading article on Monday, May 22 was the one about our "Kids At Risk".

This article highlights the growing problem that drug addiction is to our
society.

Residents in many communities are concerned about the number of needles and
other paraphernalia used and discarded by addicts in public places.

This is posing a public threat to all members of the community.

The problem won't go away either while we have a "soft" policy on drug
abuse.

The policy of "harm minimisation" is clearly not working.

It is interesting to note that the impetus for the policy of harm
minimisation was to prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS infection in the
injecting drug-user population.

One part of that policy is the needle exchange program.

This program makes needles available free of charge to addicts through a
variety of outlets close to the injecting drug-user population.

The success of this program relies on the responsible behaviour of the
injecting drug user and their motivation to obtain clean needles.

The other part of the policy is the support for the expansion of the supply
of methadone.

Harm minimisation has been tied up with the fight against HIV/AIDS and not
against drug addiction.

This was made very clear in the early years of the threat of the HIV/AIDS
epidemic.

It was felt that the most urgent need was the threat that HIV infection had
on the community rather than the drug use itself.

We are now faced with a situation that we have an epidemic of hepatitis C
infection.

In 1997, a study entitled "Hepatitis C transmission on the north coast of
NSW: explaining the unexplained" concluded that "injecting drug use with the
sharing of injecting equipment accounted for transmission in 76 per cent of
all people with hepatitis C".

Clearly the needle exchange program, where rarely are needles exchanged, has
failed to prevent an epidemic of hepatitis C largely because of the failure
of drug addicts to conform to safe injecting behaviours.

There is now growing public intolerance for funding the harm minimisation
programs that do not deliver drug-free outcomes.

One who strongly disagrees with the needle exchange programs is James
Curtis, professor of psychiatry at Columbia University, and director of the
Harlem Hospital Centre's Department of Psychiatry in New York.

Prof Curtis says that needle exchange programs "merely facilitate continuing
drug use"

He compares this to giving an alcoholic a clean glass to prevent meningitis.

Prof Curtis says that in New York, needle exchange programs albeit, aid, and
encourage addiction."

"They are not tackling the real, human problem behind drug abuse, he says.

"Drug addicts suffer from a serious disease requiring a comprehensive
treatment intervention, sometimes under compulsion, as a protection from
themselves and others".

This is the crux of the problem.

Drug use particularly injecting drug use, must be seen as a dangerous
activity to be avoided and discouraged by the community.

By continually talking about free needle exchanges, "safe" injecting rooms,
that are anything but safe, we are giving our youth the message that this
behaviour is not all that bad.

We are encouraging experimentation, and this experimentation can and often
does, lead to death.

JULIANNE WHYTE, LOWESDALE