In the battle against HIV/AIDS, countries continue to take preventative measures to keep their citizens healthy and disease-free. But in Vancouver, at a “safe injection site” called Insite, preventative measures are much more unorthodox.
Insite allows drug addicts to come to their facility and obtain clean needles for drug use. Nurses are permitted to help heroin addicts with needle placement into their arm, so long as they don’t actually administer the drug itself. According to a study sponsored by the United States National Institutes of Health, Vancouver’s infection rate dropped 52 percent from 1996 to 2009. But Insite should hardly be praised if its workers did contribute to this low percentage based on the simple truth that it encourages drug use.
To argue that preventing HIV/AIDS is more important than helping addicts get to rehab facilities, as Insite seems to communicate through its policies, is startlingly ignorant. Although the people who obtain clean needles from the facility do have a smaller chance of contracting HIV, the fact that they’re allotted needles at all completely bypasses Canada’s narcotics laws and only encourages further drug use. There’s already one method of eliminating both drug addiction and HIV: it’s called rehabilitation.
With that said, while Insite doesn’t approach this problem with outstanding tactics, it’s admirable that the program administrators are intent on finding a solution that deals directly with the drug community. Many organizations are hesitant to actually engage with using addicts. Rehabilitation facilities often implement no-tolerance policies, a possible contributor to the sad reality that most people in rehab either leave during treatment or relapse afterward. Left without guidance, they’re liable to pick up drugs without giving a second thought to their poor health ramifications.
The correlation between dirty needles and HIV is undoubtable and should be addressed, but not in such a radical manner. The one thing Insite has that America institutions should take heed of is their willingness to physically interact with people who aren’t classic “exemplary citizens.” The U.S. prides itself on being a country composed of healthy, successful people who work their way to the top in the face of temptation. At some point, there has to be a vested concentration in giving less fortunate people the momentum to mobilize change in their own lives.
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