by Martin Chandler

Created on: February 05, 2008

I feel compelled to write in support of government funding for needle exchange programs, especially in light of one of the "No" writers who, I feel, eloquently summarised most myths about on injecting drug use and needle exchange. Having worked in this field for several years I feel quite strongly that people should make their decisions about this issue based on genuine evidence rather than beliefs or scare stories.

Perhaps one of the most prevailing myths around needle exchange is the belief that it promotes or encourages drug use. Nothing could be further from the truth. There exists a significant body of research around this and, to date, there is no evidence for increases in injecting drug use in any area with a needle exchange. But let us put that in context; needle exchange began in the very early 1980's and has since spread to almost all westernised countries as well as countries such as Iran. Surely, given the very widespread nature of the scheme and the vast number of needle exchanges that now exist worldwide, we would have seen some evidence of this feared increase in drug use? But no, no such evidence exists. Indeed the fact that needle exchanges do not cause an increase in drug use has been ratified by former United States Surgeon General Dr. Davis Satcher, former Director of the National Institutes of Health Dr. Harold Varmus, and former Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, Donna Shalala. I sincerely doubt such individuals would make a colossal error of judgement in this matter.

The belief that free availability of needles will encourage people to inject, especially those who had not desired to do so previously, could be likened to increasing the likelihood of people drinking by providing pint glasses. Clearly, this is an unlikely scenario at best. People who feel a desire to experience certain types of drug will find a way to do so, the availability of paraphernalia to do so has never made the slightest difference to that desire. When young people first try drinking alcohol, do they look for glasses, or do they simply swig from the bottle? When people wish to smoke crack, do they buy a custom made crack pipe or do they make one from foil? The answer, more often than not, is that they make one.

The encouragement to take certain types of drug, especially those considered most addictive; such as heroin, crack cocaine and of course the most addictive drug of all; nicotine, is in the interaction between drug and user. The paraphernalia

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