DEALING WITH DRUGS

Regarding the Cactus needle exchange's difficulties in finding a new locale
["Needling exchange," March 10]:

People don't want landfills or junkies in their neighbourhoods, that's
pretty much a given. But there will always be garbage and there will always
be addiction. So, it would be more productive to stop stubbornly crying,
"not in my backyard," and look at more progressive solutions.

The heroin addicts downtown aren't simply going to pick up and leave, so as
a start it wouldn't hurt to provide them with bigger, cleaner facilities in
an area where they're already concentrated. There's plenty of evidence from
around the world that programs that treat addiction in a clean and healthy
way, rather than sweeping it off somewhere else then turning a blind eye,
lower the spread of HIV and crime.

Mike LeBlanc