Sunday, October 18, 2009

A Sticky Topic




A recent story in KOMO news covered the King County needle exchange program saying that drug use in downtown Seattle has gone up since the opening of their new center last year. Cocaine and heroine addicts can now flock to the  corner of 10th and Seneca to get supplies for their daily jollies. Drug users simply show up and exchange their used needles for clean syringes.This "service" is free to anyone sober enough to show up. 

While the needle exchange program has apparently been around for years, the new center barely six blocks from where I work is news to me.  The federally funded AIDS prevention program began in Seattle in 1989. Since then, King County has spent an average of 1.1 million tax dollars every year to fund it. 

The King County website offers that "In the last three years, we successfully placed 691 people in drug treatment." The article, however, fails to mention how many of these addicts completed rehab successfully. ..... interesting. 

Personally, I am all for the prevention of AIDS. It is an awful disease, killing 17, 011 people last year, but I don't think that giving free needles to users is the answer.  The tax payers of King COunty have better ways to spend their money.


 You want to get high? Fine. Just don't make me pay for it.