To the editors:
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A needle exchange will benefit Mr. Kitchen in at least three ways. First, AIDS is expensive. The average lifetime cost of treating a person with AIDS is $102,000. In the absence of medical insurance, taxpayers like Mr. Kitchen foot the bill. By reducing AIDS among drug injectors, a needle exchange will conserve Mr. Kitchen’s money. Mr. Kitchen may feel that society should not pay such costs, but the implications of that argument–that society need not pay for medical services when the damage appears to be self-inflicted–is probably not a standard that Mr. Kitchen would want to apply to himself or his family.
Finally, a needle exchange should greatly reduce the chance for Mr. Kitchen, his family, the neighborhood children, and others that populate his world to be accidentally stuck by an infected needle. Since carrying a syringe exposes addicts to arrest, syringes typically are discarded soon after injecting. In this way, used syringes end up in alleys, bushes, gangways, public bathrooms and such. Those who inject at their own residence often throw out used syringes with other trash, thus rendering garbage bins a potential hazard. By making used syringes valuable–they can be traded for a new syringe with a street value of $2-$5–needle exchanges greatly encourage addicts and street needle vendors to collect not only their own used syringes, but also any they can find. Needle exchanges promise to do for discarded syringes what aluminum recyclers did for discarded beverage cans: make them a far less common sight. Fewer used syringes in circulation or laying about equates to greater safety for trash collectors, dumpster users, police officers, rehabbers of abandoned buildings, janitors, and children playing outdoors.
University of Illinois at Chicago
