#needle exchanges

[thegazingabyss666]

did my first needle exchange today, sometimes it’s hard being right there on the streets with people struggling with addictions, watching people shoot up nearby because near us was the safest spot.  but it’s also important and rewarding. I heard 3 stories today about people getting narcan’d from doses they got from us.  and someone came in with this infected wound that one of the other volunteers helped bandage up and gave her some advice for how to treat it from home.  its just as rewarding as it is difficult to do those direct practice jobs, but they are so fucking important.  I wish that there were safe injection sites, places to test drugs for free, and that all drugs are legalized and distributed by the government to insure purity.  I have really radical drug policy opinions so it’s really cool that i fit in there pretty well hahaha 

one of the people who came in for new needles asked me how long I had been clean, and I totally stumbled and said that I was just doing my practicum and she asked if I had ever done drugs and I said that I hadn’t done injectables and she said asked if I had done hallucinogens and I said yes and she said she could tell hahaha but I totally forgot that I’ve been about 5 or 6 years clean off of opiates so I guess I’ll have to remember that in the future

[gwydionmisha]

The LGBTQ Health Clinic That Faced a Dark Truth About the AIDS Crisis

America has rarely treated all people with HIV equally.

[jenn2d2]

“If you would have asked me last year if I was for a needle exchange program, I would have said you’re nuts,” Ms. Combs said. “I thought, just like a lot of people do, that it’s enabling — that you’re just giving needles out and assisting them in their drug habit. But then I did the research on it, and there’s 28 years of research to prove that it actually works.” But researchers say that Scott County’s hastily created exchange has several features that could sharply curb its effectiveness. To get clean needles, drug users have to register, using their birth date and a few letters from their name to create an identification number that goes on a laminated card. But the police are arresting anyone found with needles but no card, saying it will prod more people to participate. Shortly after the needle exchange began, sheriff’s deputies visited a house in Austin and found a man who had joined the program and a woman who had not. They did not arrest the man, Sheriff Dan McClain said, although they confiscated a number of clean needles he had received from a volunteer group that was not part of the official program. But they did arrest the woman, who had “a freshly used needle lying next to her” in a bed spattered with blood, Sheriff McClain said. “If they’ve got one needle and they’re not in the program, they’re going to jail,’” Sheriff McClain said.

Rural Indiana Struggles to Contend With H.I.V. Outbreak - NYTimes.com

[gwydionmisha]

Harm Reduction

Unless I wasn't clear the other day, I'm a huge fan of harm reduction.  People make bad decisions.  I believe people have the right to make bad decisions.  I believe policy should take the tendency towards making bad decisions into account and an effort should be made to reduce the harm caused by those bad decisions both to the the decision makers and the people around them.  That goes for things like needle exchanges for IV drug users, or condoms and quality sex ed for teens.  I think that should also go for things like football.  People have a right to do it, but I think they should be informed about risk and every effort should be taken to limit the damage to the football players and to the people around the football player who may be harmed by the player.