Can I get some clarification Ugly?
What I'm confused about is whether or not you want to bar the addicts who are "hopeless" from the facilities, and are we also talking about the IV drug users?
Because the whole point of these facilities is to stop the spread of HIV. I mean, yeah, they have counselors and such on site in the hopes that someone will come to them, but it's really all about the disease at this point.
Part of the problem is that, while HIV is most commonly spread through your own ill choices (sex w/o protection, sharing needles, etc.), there are innocent people who work in high risk jobs. In particular, those who work in hospitals (especially ERs). My dad dropped out of med school (with 1 semester to go) because he'd have to work in Trenton's municipal hospital's ER, per his scholarship, after graduation and this was during the height of the 70s HIV epidemic. This is after an accident meant he cut himself with a needle or scalpel that he was using on a cadaver, which led to a false-positive on an HIV test (and he had just married my mom, who already had two kids).
One of his friends from the same program actually went, and died a few years later after he got HIV from a patient that started thrashing when injected with a sedative. The doctor was stabbed with the needle. And I say stabbed, but it was just a small prick--unfortunately, the virus doesn't care how deep the wound is.
So, imo, any program that vastly reduces the spread of HIV among drug addicts is worth it. And that's without considering the rest of the ways they could spread the disease to someone else--before even considering whether or not they deserve our help. I'm ignoring those questions, because the fact that hard-working, necessary people like ER doctors have such a huge risk factor is enough for me to want these programs.
I'm just confused by what your argument actually is. Are you saying that people should always be welcome at the "needle clinics", but that they don't deserve medical treatment when they OD? Or are you saying that, once they've been determined as hopeless causes, they shouldn't even receive these goods anymore? Or were you only talking about the alcoholics from being kicked out?
[EDIT]
I thought I had heard about a US city starting one of these clinics, but I can't find anything about it so I guess not. I know there's one in... Vancouver?
Edited, May 6th 2011 11:36am by idiggory
____________________________
IDrownFish wrote:
Anyways, you all are horrible, @#%^ed up people
lolgaxe wrote:
Never underestimate the healing power of a massive dong.