Nearly one-in-five new HIV cases are the result of drug users sharing dirty needles, an extrodinarily high number. Some cities have attempted to combat the epidemic by giving free clean needles to addicts in exchange for used ones. These programs are highly controversial in the U.S., with many insisting such programs encourage drug use and increase crime. Should your community be funding needle exchange programs?
For over a hundred years the US has attempted to control citizens drug use and failed. In fact, there has never been a drug-free society in all of recorded history so we shouldn't feel too bad about not living in one now.
Unfortunately, in the case of drugs, policy failure does not just mean the absence of drug-free success it also means many citizens' health destroyed and many premature deaths far beyond what would have been expected from the drug use alone!
One outstanding example of the lethality of US drug policy has been failure to fund science-based HIV prevention efforts such as needle exchange. Despite evaluations issued from 1991-1995 backing syringe exchange as an critical part of fighting HIV disease spread among people injecting from every federal evaluative body: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Institutes of Health, National Academy of Medicine/Institute of Science, General Accounting Office, Office of Technology Assessment, and the National Commission on AIDS.
As of October 2008 neither Congress nor the Executive Branch has allowed funding of syringe exchange with any federal money.
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