80sU2isBest
Rock n' Roll Doggie Band-aid
- Joined
- Nov 12, 2000
- Messages
- 4,970
Irvine511 said:
but you didn't answer my question: which is worse, enabling drug use or enabling AIDS? if we give people clean needles, we enable drug use, but we slow down the spread of AIDS. if we don't give people drug use, we don't enable their destructive habits, but AIDS continues to be spread via needles at about the same rate as it is now (and, as i said, the #1 way to get AIDS in the West is via injections).
do we let drug users destroy themselves, and bring others down with them?
By not giving a drug user clean needles, we're not enabling AIDS. We tell them not to do it, we tell `em why. If they don't listen or get help, that's their responsibility. They are the ones causing the disease; they are the ones enabling the disease.
On the other hand, if I saw a drug abuser lying in th street and I walked over and said "Oh, I wish you wouldn't do drugs; they're bad. But here's a clean needle because I know you're a loser who can't stop", my actions are sending the message that I condone drug abuse, depsite what my lips might say. I am promoting drug abuse.
But hey, as long as it stops the risk of AIDS, right? Pay no mind to the fact that drug abuse has many more disastrous effects than just AIDS, and that prolonged drug abuse will bring him a premature death anyway. When his heart kicks out at the age of 52, it will give me great comfort to say "I didn't help him stop using drugs, but at least I gave him needles and he didn't get AIDS".