Needle exchange? Yeah right...

[buttless]

Originally Posted by Lamplighter

There's more than just a bit of tunnel vision and short sighted-ness here.

The "they" and "those" are the same people that brought Outside-In to downtown Portland,
and who helped the community close bathhouses and change behaviors in the gay community
by distributing free condoms to the young people of Portland.

It's naive to believe the intent of these programs is to "enable" drug use.
The intent is to reduce infectious disease that comes with such behaviors...
just as are the programs run by the same "they" and "those" to reduce
infectious disease in the gay/lesbian community.

Perhaps some volunteering at one of Portland's community health centers
would give some much needed perspective.

It does not matter what the intent is, what matters is the result. As stated previously, all they do is take the risk from a very small segment of the downtown population and spread out to the rest of this population. Even when this is brought to the attention of the organizations there is no change.

I spend 3 days a week going out to clean up these shooting galleries on my own time. Collecting dirty needles, placing them into sharps containers and delivering them to Good Samaritan Hospital for disposal.

I started doing this after dealing with a needle-stick at work. Do you have any idea what 6 months of HIV testing is like. The testing itself is no big deal but 6 months of not knowing tears you apart.

Do not for one minute tell me how previous deeds has any bearing what is being done now. Until you have lived and worked with this going on around you.

Damn Liberals.