Yes
No
why can't you understand that free needles=less diseases spread=less tax burden compared to the price of needles?
I understand that is the viewpoint.
I am 100% against making it any tax burden. If you want your drugy friends to get clean needles, fine. Start a charity of make them legal over the counter. Do not use tax money that is better spent elsewhere.
As for needles being cheaper than expensive HIV drugs, if that is being done with tax dollars already, whay the cry for free healthcare?
It's not free. Never is. Your thinking in this thread is incomplete.
I don't find it "wrong" to use tax money to alleviate problems that affect everybody.
So, we should use tax money to support laziness? Or, is supporting lazy, unproductive types with our tax dollars an acceptable price to pay so that we can also support those who, through no fault of their own, are unable to make a living?
Because, quite frankly, private and non-profit charities are better at weeding out the lazy from the unable than is any government.
Once you involve government people start screaming for the right to not be stigmatized by the fact they're relying on government. That leads to abuse, waste, and fraud.
Just look at any government program.
Needle exchanges prevent the spread of HIV and Hepa is C. That is all. They don't encourage or discourage drug use. But unless you're OK with people using dirty needles and then having sex with people who may have had sex with someone you've had sex with - well, then you ought to support needle exchanges. It really is just that simple, people.
I have a friend who's brother died of AIDS. He was a dug user and got the disease that way. This was way back before we knew what we know today. I knew him well enough o know he would have used safer practices, and didn't need a free program. He would have bought them by the dozen. I'll bet much of the data collected that shows clean needles reduce risk of passing diseases are flawed. How do they eliminate the changes in habits people exercise when they gain knowledge? If people are not going to exercise better judgment on there own, how are free needles going to help? They still have to find the source and take the time. The cost would be minimal compared to the time they take. I have a hard time believing it will stop the spread of diseases in people who fail to exercise god judgment to begin with. Can we really assume that an addict, mostly concerned with his next high, is going to get a new needle? No... He sneaks his passed out buddies....
Again. Make needles legal to sell rather than using tax dollars. If you want to help addicts, then form your own charity. Stop finding more reasons to drain the tax dollar resources.
I'll bet much of the data collected that shows clean needles reduce risk of passing diseases are flawed.
Most needle exchange programs receive a mixture of money from public health departments and private funding. The money they receive from the government is barely a drop in the bucket compared to the money being used to fund, say, the war in Iraq.
As for how they work: Well, addicts who want to use are going to use. And if they have needles accessible to them that are clean, they will use them. They find them. The programs seek out the addicts and make them available. If they aren't available, they'll use ones that are dirty, which is how the spread of HIV and Hep C continues.
OK, you have a right to fall down laughing. I must not be getting enough sleep. I'm still not adjusted to changing my work schedule. I worded that wrong. I meant to say "I'll bet much of the data collected that shows clean needles reduce disease are flawed." I'm sure it reduces rates. Just not quan y. I say this because of the gained knowledge of people practicing better safety in general. Does a free needle exchange really work when all a conscientious user has to do is boil the needle? Maybe store it in alcohol?
I have a hard time believing it has to do with availability. It has to do with education, knowledge that past practices are not safe. Only those who care about reducing the risk will reduce the risk themselves.
I see it like birth control. Free birth control has caused more pregnancies, not less. People get wrapped up in this false security yet it isn't 100%. Condoms, pills, etc. fail. Carefree sex with lower pregnancy rates still amounts to more pregnancies. For drug usage, Lower rates with higher usage can actually end up being more cases.
I refuse to believe it does not encourage more drug usage. Let me rephrase that. It removes a fear, or stigma, that would otherwise prevent someone from trying the drugs for the first time. I'll bet if there was a study that addressed that aspect of it, we would see a growth that otherwise would be less growth, or a reduction of usage. Keep in mind, studies have not looked for such trends.
I don't give a rats ass how little the public funding is. I am one who wants to see most social programs eliminated.
If you care about this cause, give some of your money to it. Don't ask you fellow tax payer to give up their hard earned money. If we used government money to also finance all good caused more worthy than this one, we would be in financial ruins.
Charity is the way to go with most social expenditures. It allows certain limitations from the groups giving money or services out whereas the government must remain neutral. he more taxes the government imposes on the public, the less us tax payers have to give to the causes we believe in. Charities also are a free market method to deliver services the public wants rather than forcing things on us we don't want.
What I find is prevalent is that liberals want to do it with other peoples money (tax dollars) but conservatives want to do it with their own money. The general trend I find is that liberals, as a general rule, DO NOT GIVE TO CHARITIES. Because they don't, they believe nothing would get funded without taxing the bejesus out of all of us.
I have a strong disdain for most liberals because of the public theft they believe in.
How dare you mention something like the Iraq War when it is a valid cause cons utionally. Please, show me in the cons ution that allows for social programs.
It's a public health issue. I don't mind public money going to a program that cuts down on the spread of disease, especially if it will keep more of our money from being spent on the treatment of those diseases down the line.
And no federal money has gone to needle exchange programs since 1988, so there is no US cons utional argument to be made here.
EDIT: It looks like there was a recent lifting of the ban in Washington DC. That's a whole $650k.
Last edited by ChumpDumper; 06-03-2008 at 01:49 PM.
You can refuse to believe whatever you want, but you are flat out WRONG. Check out this link: http://www.rwjf.org/reports/grr/020049.htm
The evidence is overwhelming. Not only do needle exchange programs reduce the rates of HIV and Hep C infection, which is a public health and safety concern for any sexually active adult, but according to the above study as well as others, needle exchange programs are also very successful at getting addicts into treatment.
Birth control, by the way is 99.9% effective in preventing pregnancy, when used correctly. That's about as accurate as you can get from anything. It is, however, only about 80% effective in preventing STDs, while condoms are
95% effective in preventing STDs, when used correctly. And as someone who works with teenagers, I can tell you this assuredly: the kids who are going to have sex early are already having sex, usually by age 13 or 14. The kids who aren't are not "tempted" to do so because birth control and condoms are available. But the rates of herpes, syphilis, and other STDs is skyrocketing, because of the Christian right's efforts to prevent effective safer sex education.
Read that more carefully. Think about the limitations of the words used, and what better words would be if more conclusive facts were present.
So they say. I wonder, if the program is so successful, why is there only a 33% reduction in those particpatig? Again, I say those concerned only need to know how to protect themself.
Look at the timelines. They start at 1987, and use it wrong. First of all, AIDS was a realatively new discovery. Naturally, education alone will reduce the numbers from that point. There are too many other factors that lend to unreliable results of such studies.
As for getting addicts treatment... That becomes another subject, but still. Government should not be aiding drug usage. It should be a stigma. If you believe differently, then again... Do it with your money. Not mine.
The false assumtion is that it has become accepted to have sex at an early age. Kids are taught in school about it a way too early ages, then basically told it's OK. We have far higher pregnacy rates today than when I was in school because of government prevention!
And what makes you think YOUR assumption is any more accurate than my "assumption" - mine is based on hard data. What is yours based on? I challenge you to find one single peer-reviewed, scientific study that shows sex education programs causing an increase in sexual activity.
An alternate theory might be that the increased sexualization of kids and teens on TV and in movies increases kids' interest in sex at an early age. There's also some evidence to suggest that environmental toxins are actually causing kids to reach puberty at an early age: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases...0206121505.htm
I call bull .
Prove this.
I am getting really tired of you passing off your opinion as fact.
I don't need to see a peer reviewed study. I've seen the DRAMTIC rise in teen pregnacies grow in my lifetime.
You're joking right? We had plenty of sexualization when I was a kid. The difference is, now the schools teach of abortion rights, hand out condoms, and girls can get birth control from the school nurse without their parents knowledge or consent, they think it's OK! No matter how much the parents say it's a bad thing, the government schools undermine the parents authority.
This is a total disgrace.
You are stupid as to think what I see with my own eyes is opinion. How do I sum up nearly 50 years of experience? It still wouldn't be proof enough for you, would it?
Anecdotal stories are very cute, but don't mean . I could tell you a million anecdotal stories that are all true from my own life, which contradict everything you could come up with from yours.
Let's see some facts, and some data. Otherwise, what you're stating is an OPINION. Which is fine. But don't try and pass it off as FACT.
I'm not going to bother. But tell me one thing. Are you saying for the record that teen pregnacy rates are lower now than 30 years ago? I would diagree with that!
No, i am not, although as I said, I don't actually know whether it is or not. Since you are going to try and hold a discussion without actually providing any research or facts for your arguments (which is just plain lazy) I am going to end this discussion with you.
However, I will leave you with another reference:
http://www.coolnurse.com/teen_pregnancy_rates.htm
This article's first paragraph disputes everything you've tried to say, and it's just the first thing that comes up when you Google teen pregnancy:
"The United States has the highest teen pregnancy rate in the western world, despite the fact that our teens are not more sexually active than Swedish teens, or Canadian teens, or British teens.
Why? Because we don't educate about birth control in sex education classes, we don't discuss it at home, we don't give teens good access to it, and we don't advertise it in our media. Other countries do, and they are rewarded with low rates of teen pregnancy and teen abortions. But, you say, making condoms available in school-based clinics would ‘give kids the wrong idea’. In fact, 5 recent research studies indicate that it doesn't."
Not lazy, just that if I take the time needed to address this subject right, I don't have the time for other things.
As for that article, I don't care what it says. Look at what it really says. Lack of proper education. Back to the government schools, they teach the subject, but not very good. I agree the parental involvement is lacking. I lived in Europe for six years, and they do have better social structures than se do. I'm not comparing us with other countries, but a now vs. time past.
I don't know how old you are, but ask anyone growing up in the 60's and 70's about what they saw for teen birth rates then vs. today. It is so blatantly obvious, I shouldn't have to find an article on it.
Ah, I see.
Your opinion is better than all the scientific data gathered on any given subject, because you are so smart that you don't need real data.
Gotcha.
As of the date of this pdf report in late 2006 (based on data up to 2002) it is.
http://www.teenpregnancy.org/resourc...te_oct2006.pdf
1972 95
1973 96
1974 99
1975 101
1976 101
1977 105
1978 105
1979 109
1980 111
1981 110
1982 110
1983 109
1984 108
1985 109
1986 107
1987 107
1988 111
1989 115
1990 117
1991 115
1992 111
1993 108
1994 105
1995 100
1996 96
1997 91
1998 89
1999 86
2000 84
2001 80
2002 75
You fail, dogma-boy.
Last edited by RandomGuy; 06-05-2008 at 03:04 PM.
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