Not to sound callous, but if they already have AIDS, why do they need a needle exchange program?
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.
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.