Friday, April 15, 2005
To maintain a public health emergency, the Humboldt County Board of Supervisors has to decide every two weeks if it wants to extend the emergency that allows a needle-exchange program to proceed in Humboldt County.
The two-week requirement is a bureaucratic waste of time that should be cast aside. If a bill co-authored by North Coast Assemblywoman Patty Berg succeeds, it will remove the every-two-week requirement.
The needle-exchange program is vital in society's effort to reduce the transmission of HIV, Hepatitis C and other blood-borne pathogens, because drug users are able to secure new needles for used needles.
It's rather obvious that when drug users share needles, the incidence of contracting diseases increases.
Although drug addiction is to be avoided, there will probably always be people who become addicted to drugs.
If, because of needle sharing, addicts contract a potentially fatal disease to feed their drug habits, the costs to society in terms of human suffering increase substantially.
Why? Because not only will the drug abuser be affected by the disease, but others could be as well. Addicts' use of used, contaminated needles could spread a deadly disease to their children and/or sexual partners. As you can see, the cost to society could be exponential.
There is also a financial cost – one that could be avoided if drug addicts used new needles. It is extremely costly to medically treat people with AIDS, Hepatitis C and other diseases – however, that is not our primary concern. Our primary concern is for those who are trapped in their own addictive cycles and finding ways to reach them in an attempt to break their addictions.
A needle-exchange program can prevent suffering caused by blood-borne disease, although it probably won't deter many addicts from using the drug of their choice. However, they can obtain information about how they can be helped with their addiction at the time they exchange needles.
Whatever can be done to reduce the incidence of disease is a positive step for society.
Some might believe the drug addicts could eliminate the need for such a program by not taking drugs, but that is an unrealistic and simplistic viewpoint.
Berg's bill has garnered bipartisan support – its co-author is Northridge Republican Keith Richman.
Berg had a similar bill last year vetoed by the governor, but we hope he takes a new look at this bill. After all, the bill has support from 30 lawmakers. We hope the full Assembly will show the same wisdom as it did last year, when it approved her previous bill.
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