The AP has an article reporting on the progress of the Public Health Policy Committee’s studies during the legislative interim says that the committee could not come to an agreement on needle exchange policy. In the wake of an HIV outbreak in southern Indiana, the General Assembly gave the Indiana State Department of Health authority to approve local needle exchange programs. Such approval has been given to Scott, Fayette, and Madison Counties.
Rep. Charlie Brown, a Gary Democrat who’s a committee member, said he plans to sponsor legislation that would allow any Indiana community to start a needle-exchange program without the state health commissioner’s approval.
My questions on this — and maybe the committee addressed these issues — are:
1) What is the downside to allowing the local health officer to authorize a needle exchange program where needed? In other words, what does the public lose if clean needles are more readily available under circumstances that the state health commissioner wouldn’t have approved?
2) Is the state health department being unnecessarily restrictive? Is there evidence that there are counties in Indiana where this would help but the State won’t allow it?
At the end of the day, we shouldn’t let absolutist moral gestures stand in the way of practical solutions where the cost/benefit of such gestures doesn’t make sense. I think the history of these needle exchanges is that there is a fear that approving them is condoning the illegal and/or immoral behavior associated with needle use. You see echoes of that kind of fear in the resistance to getting HPV vaccinations for fear that it will lead to more girls having sex. But, even if you don’t approve of sex and drugs, it’s disproportionate to allow those activities to be a death sentence where there are fairly simple steps that can be taken to mitigate the adverse consequences.
“[a]bsolutist moral gestures” comprise the central, but unstated, central plank of the majority party.
This is the typical bureaucratic Top Down/Orderly but Dumb thinking we have come to expect from Government. Republicans and Democrats alike micromanage from on high.
The State of Indiana thinks they are in a better position than the people on the front line to determine local area needs?
How many people become infected and die in the interim? What about the economic cost of providing state services to this largely uninsured population?
What is sad is the full impact of the heroin epidemic and the increasing use of IV drugs will drive this problem home for many Hoosier families. How forgiving of our lost Legislators do you suppose they will be?
I dare say this scourge will likely touch the families of our elected Representatives before it is finally taken seriously. Maybe when they have personal stories to share they will be moved.
I understand that people who die of heroin overdose isn’t just from heroin. These people are often multiple-drug users and in really bad shape. This state needs a substantial investment in programs. If they strain on clean needles, just where do you think they might be on a substantial investment that would serve the common good?
How many people think having a “highly moral” person in public service is “exactly what we need”? Being a highly moral person, in terms of one’s own personal conduct, is one thing, but forcing some “moral” positions onto others while ignoring the common good is something else. While such people think in straight lines, the general public thinks in circles. It seems to me that politics is like making sausage, and if you don’t like mixing the ingredients, then don’t make the sausage. The politician has to focus on the common good, not foisting what he/she demands of him/herself onto others. This is just another one of those little problem areas that “highly moral” people will face who don’t understand that governance requires some sensible compromise, and if they can’t serve the common good, then it’s time to stop making sausage.
You wouldn’t think that we would need to say this kind of thing. Where were these folks during Governance 101? Probably in a church full of authoritarians.
“Where were these folks during Governance 101? Probably in a church full of authoritarians.”
Of course you answered your own question, these folks don’t give a damn about good governance… They care about 2 things, maintaining control and stealing as many tax $$$ as possible
“we shouldn’t let absolutist moral gestures stand in the way of practical solutions where the cost/benefit of such gestures doesn’t make sense.”
Little chance of that happening in Republican dominated Indiana.
See birth control. See 1960 to 2015.