What kinds of treatment are problematic?
- Needle exchange programs (NEPs) and Supervised Injection Sites (SISs)
- In NEPs intravenous drug users are given clean needles but not required to return dirty ones. SISs provide medical personnel to assist drug users in injecting themselves with illegal drugs.
- Despite their apparent compassionate intent to reduce HIV and other blood borne infections, NEPs and SISs have been shown to be ineffective. In Vancouver, BC, rates of HIV, hepatitis C and other infections such as MRSA have increased, not decreased, since its NEP and SIS were established.
- Workers at these facilities rarely if ever refer users to treatment which not only misleads addicts into thinking that drugs can be used safely but also abandons users to their addictions with no end in sight.
- The rationale of needle exchange relies on an intoxicated user to make the responsible decision to safely dispose of his/her dirty needles – an unreasonable, even unfair expectation.
- As a society we want to bring those struggling with addiction to sobriety by not allowing them to live in denial or protecting them from the consequences of their behavior. If an addict has to hit bottom before getting help, we should raise the bottom, not lower it.
- Opioid maintenance programs that do not offer comprehensive treatment or strive toward abstinence.
- Supplying users with their drug of choice such as heroin (August 2008 marked the end of a trial heroin maintenance program in Vancouver, and San Francisco has been considering a similar approach.)
