Wow! No one saw this coming...

[Yonivore]

San Francisco had a brilliant idea to reduce the health risks posed by druggies sharing needles around San Francisco… flood the city with millions more needles… for free!

And now those same officials are surprised that it hasn’t turned out so well (http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/07/29/BAG37R934A1.DTL):


They tell us he was steaming, but San Francisco [Democrat] Mayor Gavin Newsom shouldn’t have been too surprised when The Chronicle reported that Golden Gate Park was littered with used drug syringes.

After all, his own Public Health Department spent $800,000 last year to help hand out some 2 million syringes to drug users under the city’s needle exchange program — sometimes 20 at a time.

Although Health Department officials say 2 million needles were returned, the fact is they don’t count them and can only estimate how many are coming back.

And from the looks of things, a lot of them aren’t.
Surprise, surprise. You give free needles to drug users and expect that once they’ve used them and entered their drug-induced state that they’ll be lucid enough to think, “Hey, I should really return this needle to the proper authorities now.” (To say nothing of the fact most couldn’t care less about civic responsibilities when not in a drug-induced stupor) Doh!


Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi, who has picked up needles in the park and who co-authored the bill allowing them to be sold over the counter, said it’s up to the city to keep the parks syringe-free — either through more cleanups or tighter controls to make sure needles are returned.

“We need to come up with a better system,'’ Mirkarimi said.
Ya think? You can start by ceasing the government-funded enablement.


Another idea, this one from the Homeless Youth Coalition, is to put biohazard boxes in the park where users could drop their needles.

But as park spokeswoman Dennis noted, “Many people are completely against that route. The questions are: ‘Do we really want them in the bathrooms? What if a kid popped one open or they were vandalized?’ ”

Plus, she added, “Some people think it sends the wrong message.”
Unlike the city handing out free syringes to addicts.

Another priceless gem of a government plan gone...exactly where a reasonable person would expect it to.

[DarkReign]

Dumbest idea ever.

[fyatuk]

Funny how more and more cities are considering that asinine program. Heck, it's even being pushed for here in San Antonio.

[Wild Cobra]

Again, responsibility and the ability to try to use full circle foraward thinking separates the liberls from the conservatives.

[thispego]

who cares? let them all use one needle! if you have to take your drugs intraveneously then I do not feel bad for you if you contract any disease as a result.

[Wild Cobra]

We just need to remember, these are the people that put Pelosi in office.

Nuff said?

[DarkReign]

We just need to remember, these are the people that put Pelosi in office.

Nuff said?

Total guess here, but heroin addicts cant find their way to a shower much less voting booths. Total guess....

[Wild Cobra]

Total guess here, but heroin addicts cant find their way to a shower much less voting booths. Total guess....
Just expand the thought process to the people of SF as a whole. They elect people in office who are absolutely myopic when it comes to cause and effect.

[Yonivore]

Total guess here, but heroin addicts cant find their way to a shower much less voting booths. Total guess....
I'm thinking he was referring to the idiots that come up with the lame brain ideas...but, I could be wrong. And, even if that's not what he meant, it's the truth; people who advocate free needles for junkies are the people that put Pelosi in office.

[possessed]

What's next, free Thunderbird for the homeless?

Your tax dollars ladies and gentlemen...

[xrayzebra]

Well, here in San Antonio, DA Reed says the needle exchange
may violate Narc laws. I could not find a link to the story on
My SA.com.

[boutons_]

Needle exchange programs struggle with funding despite positive studies

By John Christoffersen, Associated Press

NEW HAVEN, Conn — With her greyish hair and pink sweater, retired teacher Joanne Iannotti looks like a typical grandmother as she emerges slowly from her home with a little bag of dirty hypodermic needles.

She shuffles to a van and exchanges her bag for clean needles for her adult sons, who she says shoot heroin with their friends.

"They tend to want to share," Iannotti says. "I say, 'No wait. I have clean needles for everybody."'

Iannotti participates in one of nearly 200 needle exchange programs in the United States. A growing body of research has found that needle exchange programs reduce the spread of AIDS without increasing drug use.

But local budget cuts and a federal ban on funding such programs in the United States and abroad are hurting the programs at a time when injection drug use is fueling a global AIDS epidemic, advocates say.

"Funding for needle exchange programs in the United States has always been difficult because the governmental bodies have never wanted to support what they see as a morally slippery intervention," said Dr. Peter Havens of the Medical College of Wisconsin.

Physicians for Human Rights held congressional briefings last week to build support for needle exchange and other programs to prevent the spread of AIDS among drug users. The group also wants the U.S. to lift constraints on programs that receive U.S. funding so they can collaborate with needle exchange programs funded by other donors.

About one-fourth of the nearly 950,000 AIDS cases in the United States through 2005 involved injection drug use, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The rate is even higher in many other countries, experts say.

Critics say needle exchange programs encourage risky behavior and work against efforts to fight drug abuse.

( "fight drug abuse" is succeeding? )

But countries in Europe and Asia have increasingly recognized the benefits of needle exchange programs, Havens said.

( but Ameica's humans are always different ... and better )

After several studies, then-Health and Human Services Secretary Donna Shalala determined in 1998 that such programs reduce the transmission of HIV and do not encourage the use of illegal drugs.

"They work," said Ricky Bluthenthal, senior social scientist at Rand Corp. who has studied the programs in Connecticut and other states. "The evidence in support of them is quite strong."

The New Haven program was touted as a national model after a Yale University professor in the early 1990s was among the first to document the effectiveness of providing clean needles to slow the spread of the HIV virus that causes AIDS.

George Ducheli and Ambritt Lytell-Myers, who drive the program's van, are convinced they are saving lives. Both are recovering drug addicts.

"They're going to get high anyway," Ducheli says. "We're just keeping them from getting infected or infecting others if they are already infected."

In addition to proving clean syringes, they try to connect drug users with treatment.

Iannotti says one of her sons was getting violent, had wrecked cars and even stole her funeral money. But Ducheli arranged for him to get into treatment last week.

"His mood is completely different," Iannotti says. "He wants to stay longer."

A proposed state budget would cut about $100,000 from the $500,000 spent on needle exchange programs in New Haven, Hartford, Danbury, Stamford and Bridgeport. That cut would make it difficult to operate the New Haven program and could lead to some of the other programs being eliminated, officials said.

"You're talking about trading lives for $100,000," said David Purchase, chairman of the North American Syringe Exchange Network.

The money was cut because Gov. M. Jodi Rell wants to increase spending for programs that help children with asthma, obesity and other health issues, Rell spokesman Rich Harris said.

"What the governor has had to do is make some choices about where she is going to spend limited state resources," Harris said.

The New Haven program is already struggling with limited money. Ducheli and Lytell-Myers drive a van that is nearly 20 years old and has 170,000 miles.

"They break down all the time," Ducheli says of the vans. "We run out of syringes all the time."

Needle exchange programs have grown slowly around the country, relying on private and state funding.

New Jersey, the only state without either a needle exchange program or one that allows syringes to be sold without a prescription, recently legalized needle exchange programs after a long struggle.

In Chicago, a cut in funding this year will mean 800,000 fewer dirty needles will be taken off the streets, according to Dan Bigg, program director.

The funding was cut from about $1.1 million to $870,000 because of a decrease of HIV cases involving injection drugs, said Christopher Brown, a Chicago health official. He credited the needle exchange program with causing the decline, but said officials try to match limited funds with the type of transmission that accounts for the most new cases.

Ducheli and Lytell-Myers say businesses sometimes chase them away and police arrest their clients. But Lytell-Myers is driven by the loss of her husband and sister to AIDS.

"I want to save the world," she says. "The ones closest to me I couldn't save. I want everyone to get a feel of what recovery is."

Iannotti says the program kept her sons from getting infected with the AIDS virus.

"I think it's fabulous," Iannotti says. "I think it saves a lot of lives."

Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

==================

All you anti-needle program people: Don't think about the program in moral or punitive, vindictive "fuck the druggies" or "Christian" terms. Think about it like a True American in the only value you understand, in dollalrs.

Keeping people from getting AIDS, hepatitis, etc is much cheaper in tax $$ than letting them get and then end up in the ER for much more expensive long term treatment.

And how much $$$ is involved compared with Bridges to nowhere, farm supports to agri-business, and the Iraq war?

[Aggie Hoopsfan]

Good old California...

[Extra Stout]

We just need to remember, these are the people that put Pelosi in office.

Nuff said?
What's even funnier is that something like 40% of the people gripe that she's too conservative.