PR Offers Syringe Vending Machine for Addicts

[BloodEclipse]

Newsmax.com

Tuesday, October 13, 2009 9:25 PM




SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico -- A needle exchange program in Puerto Rico is testing a vending machine that provides drug users with clean syringes after-hours to fight the spread of HIV and hepatitis C.

Dr. Jose Vargas Vidot is the founder of Community Initiative, the U.S. island territory's only needle-exchange group. He says a single machine will make clean syringes available at night outside the group's office in Hato Rey.

Vargas said Tuesday that drug counseling offices that distribute syringes are open only during daylight hours.

The vending machine program targets young addicts reluctant to seek help.

Drug users can get syringes, cookers, cotton filters, gauze and sterile water to prepare drugs for injection by inserting a special card.

How soon before we find them here?

 

[Lakefield22]

I rather like Portugal's approach to drugs. Address the issue through treatment and therapy rather than prison. Also, is Community Initiative a private organization? If so, I would much rather see private organizations helping than increased government bureaucracy under the guise of a war on drugs.

Other than that, I really fail to see how it is the government's business how one chooses to commit suicide.

 

[rambone]

Interesting...

 

[mrjarrell]

Sounds like a worthwhile program. If it can help stop the spread of these diseases and keep addicts from committing crimes for their fix, I say go for it. Wish it was privately funded, rather than paid for by tax dollars, but it's a step in the right direction, at least. Programs like this have shown quite a level of success in the past. Britain's program (discontinued due to Reagan's war on drugs policy) was actually lowering the number of addicts in Britain. After Reagan had his way the rates rose again. Hope PR's program has some success. At the least they can help keep communicable disease down.

 

[LEaSH]

So there giving away the tools to administer the drug. What about trying to stop the junk from coming in?

The tiny island is 100mi L x 50mi W.

 

[Fletch]

So there giving away the tools to administer the drug. What about trying to stop the junk from coming in?

Why? A person should be allowed to engage in voluntary trade for whatever they subjectively deem will improve the quality of their lives. It's called freedom.

 

[LEaSH]

Addiction is no way to live free. I've known a few addicts, they didn't seem very happy.

 

[XMil]

It is freedom indeed. As far as keeping it off the island, fat chance. We can't even keep it out of prisons.

 

[rambone]

Freedom

Puerto Rico is part of US territory, and all residents are US citizens. However, the government has had a policy of population control in place, including forced sterilization of women by the Government.

Just sayin. It came to my mind when we were talking about their freedom.

https://www.indianagunowners.com/fo...tions_and_mass_sterilizations.html#post478177

 

[Fletch]

Addiction is no way to live free. I've known a few addicts, they didn't seem very happy.

As a recovering addict, I certainly agree. However, it is not the right of another person to say what I may or may not use in furtherance of my daily quest for a "better" state of being, so long as what I use is obtained through voluntary trade. The way to help addicts is with compassion, not with force.

 

[LEaSH]

Now that's some scary-messed-up-unbelievable-brutal links you provide there.

 

[LEaSH]

As a recovering addict, I certainly agree. However, it is not the right of another person to say what I may or may not use in furtherance of my daily quest for a "better" state of being, so long as what I use is obtained through voluntary trade. The way to help addicts is with compassion, not with force.

I concur. I will not to pretend to have an answer. Maybe drug addiction and experimentation are part of being human. To avoid it is to turn our collective backs to it. I dunno.
I'm glad you're going clean. Cheers to staying sober.

 

[turnandshoot4]

Just to add a herion addict told me that it is as simple as buying some insulin needles from the drug store. Perhaps diabetics could use these as well.

 

[BloodEclipse]

The way to help addicts is with compassion, not with force.

I agree as long as we are talking about compassion and not ENABLING.
Too many of the problems we see today in society have been because we have too many people who enable others.
They think it is love and compassion they are offering when in truth, they only offer the ability for the bad behavior to continue. They postpone the day when an individual HAS to make a choice. Tough love is just that but it is true love and not some misguided emotion that allows someone to destroy themselves.

 

[Fletch]

I agree as long as we are talking about compassion and not ENABLING.
Too many of the problems we see today in society have been because we have too many people who enable others.
They think it is love and compassion they are offering when in truth, they only offer the ability for the bad behavior to continue. They postpone the day when an individual HAS to make a choice. Tough love is just that but it is true love and not some misguided emotion that allows someone to destroy themselves.

Drawing a distinction between compassion and enabling doesn't negate the idea that it is immoral to use force on someone who is getting their fix through peaceful means (ie, not using force or fraud). Beyond that, I agree with you.