Re:America’s syringe exchanges kill drug users
by maxerickson on Sunday December 04, 2022 @07:09AM
(#33852940)
Hepatitis C is often curable these days. The treatments aren't effective 100% of the time, but much of the time the virus is cleared completely.
- smoking has long-term negative health outcomes
- drug abuse also has long-term negative health outcomes
Short term:
- I can’t even really think of a dirty-needle equivalent for smoking
- using a dirty needle has a large number of short-term/acute/immediate outcomes: infection, incurable disease (Hepatitis, HIV, etc) and spreads between users
It’s not as if we’re taxing cigarettes and giving away fentanyl for free to everyone. Yes, we even do give some drugs out for free (e.g., methadone and suboxone), but only to people who have already ruined their reward systems and become addicted. I couldn’t go to a doctor or a clinic and say “the last time I consumed an opiate was 12 years ago after my knee surgery but please sign me up for free methadone!”