Posted on 11/09/2006 10:43:32 AM PST by Laissez-faire capitalist
Yes indeed and once again reelected with almost no contest. She supposedly reps me and my wife ......
In Massachusetts, you can't buy syringes without a prescription. There might be a needle exchange program here -- I remember hearing something about it, but not sure how it came out. I know there's a methadone clinic in Boston, but last year or so, when it was proposed to make needles available without prescription, there was a hue and cry. Personally, I'm not sure I think anything should be available by prescription only; of course, health insurance shouldn't have to cover drugs that aren't prescribed. (I only care about the syringes, because I used to have a diabetic cat, my beloved Sadie, RIP 1991, so I needed a prescription for her needles; for insulin, I was surprised to learn, you don't need a prescription.)
A good first lesson for Republicans, when something like this can be used as a political weapon nationwide, USE IT!
Because druggies have a nasty habit of sharing needles and transmitting HIV/Hepatitis to others. This is what the Needle Exchange programs are designed to combat.. if you can get your own clean needle for free, you don't need to share. The effectiveness of said programs are debatable.
Yes, people SHOULD be able to buy needles (and drugs) on their own, but folks would get squeamish about junkies in Walgreens while filling their post election Prozac scrip.
In a perfect world, OK. In the real world, they will get aids and end up at county hospital, costing the taxpayers about $1k a day. Then they will get government supplied AIDS drugs, and government disabilty pay.
I would rather the government gave the $5 worth of needles.
How about to avoid spreading HIV/AIDS, whether to other intravenous drug abusers or their unsuspecting sexual significant others? Are you aware that HIV/AIDS patients get Medicaid drug benefits that cost approximately $24,900 annually.
"Approximately 13,100 hospital discharges of "pre-AIDS" patients (patients with HIV infection but not AIDS) and 49,000 patients with AIDS were identified. On average, the pre-AIDS patients were hospitalized once during the year. Patients with AIDS were admitted an average of 2.1 times. When the mean cost of inpatient care was added to outpatient care, monitoring, potent antiretroviral therapy, and community care costs, the average annual cost was estimated at $17,600 per patient for those in the pre-AIDS state versus $24,900 for a patient with AIDS, yielding an annual cost difference of $7,300 per patient."
You can look up their increased life expectancy with the newer HAART drugs for HIV/AIDS. It was 10 years before HAART drugs.
P.S. We're stuck with Medicaid until we go bust.
Then why didn't it say needle exchange for "intravenous drug users" rather than "AIDS sufferers"? That was my point.
I have no idea. I just know what I have read. Enter needle exchange and (HIV or AIDS) into PubMed. Enter "needle exchange" at PubMedCentral for complete articles. Include the quotation marks there.
She wants to supply the needles and who will supply the illegal drugs and the money to pay for the illegal drugs. Will these people be exempt from prosecution for possession? Seems all she is doing is fostering the illegal drug trade and drug cartels.
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