FREE NEEDLES DON'T CREATE ADDICTS

Re: "Needle exchange adds to problems," letter, May 7.

I suspect that the writer has never known someone with a drug addiction.

Nobody wants to be an injection drug user. Free, clean needles
therefore cannot be described as an incentive. The allegation that
free, clean needles will lead to an "increasing population of
injection drug-users" is simply ridiculous. Would anyone jump off a
cliff if you were offered free snacks at the bottom?

We are not speaking of a part of society that we can just ignore, or
shake our collective fingers at. The problem is also much more than
policy-makers alone can deal with.

We need a population that is not afraid to consider that a
black-and-white approach drug addiction will not suffice.

Chris Fretwell,

North Saanich.