I WOULD like to raise a point made by Dr Aitken in his reply (June 22) that I believe needs airing in the media. He stated that needle and syringe programs "increase the number of injecting drug users referred to and retained in drug treatment". Does this mean that the policy of harm minimisation, which needle exchange programs are a part of, is judged successful if the addicts are retained in a drug-using lifestyle? Is it judged successful if addicts commit less crime, spend less time looking for drugs and drug paraphernalia, have easier access to drugs, but are actually maintained on drugs? [continues 365 words]
THE letter from Dr Campbell Aitken (Opinion, The Border Mail, June 10) is interesting, coming from such a major research centre. He describes a variety of measures (variables) introduced to control HIV/AIDS infection, but makes no mention of any control group to prove that needle exchange made the difference in reducing the number of new cases (incidence rate) of that infection. This was the same comment that the World Health Organisation made when it reported on the Swiss trials of safe injecting rooms. [continues 201 words]
FURTHER to the discussion on needle distribution for intravenous drug users, I would like to add the following data. The annual surveillance report of the National Centre for Epidemiology and Clinical Research, HIV/AIDS and Related Diseases in Australia 1997, does not show any evidence that the free needle distribution program has offered any benefits in the reduction of HIV infection in Australia. To back this up, overall trends show that HIV diagnoses fell rapidly from 2600 in 1985 to 1700 in 1988, in the era before free needle distribution, but thereafter more slowly to 1400 in 1991, 950 in 1994 and 850 in 1996. [continues 243 words]
THE leading article on Monday, May 22 was the one about our "Kids At Risk". This article highlights the growing problem that drug addiction is to our society. Residents in many communities are concerned about the number of needles and other paraphernalia used and discarded by addicts in public places. This is posing a public threat to all members of the community. The problem won't go away either while we have a "soft" policy on drug abuse. The policy of "harm minimisation" is clearly not working. [continues 454 words]
