WE Blog

Chicago Tribune columnist Steve Chapman doesn’t think much of Rep. Todd Tiahrt’s thinking about needle exchanges, specifically the Goddard Republican’s legislation that has barred the District of Columbia from using its own money to fight AIDS by passing out syringes to drug addicts. “You can find studies that fail to vindicate needle distribution, just as you can find Sundays when the Detroit Lions win. But they are rare and unrepresentative,” Chapman wrote.
And “when I contacted Tiahrt’s office, an aide said he thinks that regardless of what the studies show, ‘It is a horrible message to send children that it must be OK to do drugs.’ But that’s like saying that when the government pays for lung cancer treatment, it encourages kids to smoke. The existing policy sends a worse message: If drug users can’t conquer their addiction, they deserve to die — and so do their innocent spouses and children.” The new Congress likely will repeal Tiahrt’s ban.
Posted by Rhonda Holman