NEEDLE EXCHANGE PROGRAM MAKES HABIT A LITTLE SAFER

Mike Christopulos feels that funding clean needle exchange is wrong because
it helps addicts continue their habit ("Walker right to cut funding," The
Morning Mail). Simplistic analysis seems to be Christopulos's expertise.

By that logic then, if all needles were wiped off the planet, heroin
addicts would just simply stop. Or die. Sort of like if we took alcohol
away, holidays would end. Wait a minute, didn't we try that once? Yet
alcohol use continued, unabated, but much more dangerous as bathtub gin
made for a deadly cocktail. So Prohibition did not end alcohol use, but did
succeed in making it a health threat.

Well, Mr. Christopulos, that is how drug prohibition works. It does not
abate drug use but makes it more dangerous. And the cost to taxpayers goes
way beyond $230,000. Clean needles will not end drug addiction. But it will
make it safer. Christopulos is entitled to dislike drug users and their
addictions. But he has no right to insist on their deaths.

Bruce Rideout

Madison