NEEDLE EXCHANGE NOT A BAD THING

I once again write in response to one of your polls. This time, it is
concerning the needle exchange program. Thank God I am not a drug user, nor
have I ever had a drug user in my circle of family and friends.

However, I have the misfortune of knowing a person who is very addicted to
nicotine. This person coughs approximately 18 hours a day - every day. When
she briefly quits, the coughing stops, but this isn't incentive enough to
break the addiction. She has always prided herself in being an exemplary
employee, but now that the laws have changed regarding smoking in the
workplace (and I'm glad they have), she must take several very
unprofessional cigarette breaks, which I know breaks her heart.

She also pays more than I'm sure she ever thought she would to feed this
addiction. Her family doesn't like to visit her smoke-filled home, and she
has to stand in rain and bitter cold to engage in her habit.

When she started, smoking was not considered disgusting. She has seen
herself evolve into a social pariah even though she started to feel a part
of the group.

Finally, she saw her father die from his smoking habit at the age she is
now, which is only 62. Yet she is powerless to stop, although she has been
given many incentives and lectures.

Knowing this much about addiction, I believe strongly that heroin addicts
will not get off smack just because they don't have clean needles. They
will try to convince themselves that odds are that they won't get sick,
maybe. Hopefully, a few of them will educate themselves on cleaning the
needles with bleach.

But their addiction surpasses the moral lesson that some would try to teach
them by denying them clean needles. Even those who claim that it is their
business if they want to do heroin know that they should never have gotten
involved with it. I'll bet most would get clean if they could.

What's to teach? So if something should be attempted here, it should be the
prevention of AIDS and hepatitis, because not having a needle exchange
program will never end the addiction.

Virginia Perotti

East Northport, N.Y.