New Jersey law needs to be changed so that sterile syringes can be sold over the counter without prescription and so that organizations like the Chai Project can legally exchange needles, removing HIV-infected needles from circulation before they infect others. New Jersey is paying a high price in dollars as well as lives for ignoring the advice of the Centers for Disease Control, the American Medical Association and the other public health groups that recommend needle exchange. In this holiday season, we focus on the power of new beginnings. Drug users too can turn their lives around. But what a tragedy for them and their families if, when they do, they find that what they have before them is a life a chronic illness and perhaps a painful death.
New Jersey can do better.
We need better drug education. We need more drug treatment. In this season when we look for messages of love and forgiveness, let us consider instituting a policy that sends the message that even the lives of people who inject drugs have value.