Collection of AIDS soundbites

i just resuming in the west break room, group is resuming in the west breakroom. I need everyone out of the smoke area and back in the west breakroom. Now where do you have to go? Right here? Okay. he's [background noises] I guess. I don't know. wrong way, wrong way, Bernstein. [laughter] okay, yeah, if one hasn't, they all have. Is that what you are trying to tell me? I guess, I always have mine. You've got to reuse them. Did you lose a bet? Did you lose a bet? Looks like someone lost a bet. I fell asleep on the golf course. [Laughs] Right before the [inaudible] The choice is, do you - bottom line

bottom line, it's no: "Well I need to think I might get AIDS if I use this dirty needle or have sex with this man or this woman." I mean, it don't matter when your mind is altered, that's it. All your decisions are gone. You - what you're more just all your decisions are gone. That's all it is, that's it, so -- Whenever they, they finish injecting the drug, there is always going to be to be some blood that would travel back up into the needle as they're pulling it out out of the vein. In fact, in a couple of studies they decreased the amount of drug use because [uh] needle exchange is more than just one needle for another needle it's out outreach. It's counseling, it's availability of medical treatment trying to get people into drug treatment programs. It's a whole system. I think there are some benefits to the needle exchange but i also think i would say it needs to be more - aggressively hit more on the treatment and learning out to live on life's terms without using chemicals The theory is wonderful, you give an..you give an IV drug addict

a needle that is clean, he uses only a clean needle, throws it away, never hands it off, and therefore doesn't pass disease on, but the problem is that needle exchanges presuppose that IV drug addicts are responsible folks and that's just simply not true, just almost by definition of their lifestyle. Here a couple of months ago i got arrested and i had some [um] some some brand [uh] new syringes, needles and the police confiscated them, and a few weeks later I ended up needing some when I got out of jail and everything, and I ended up using a friend's that had been used already, so I just - I didn't feel like that was right, to - to take those, you know, because, I ended up having to, you know, because of my addiction I had to use somebody else's. The thought crossed my mind for about a moment, but my addiction's a lot stronger than that. I just wanted to get - get the drugs in my arm - cocaine. I mean, I could've smoked it, but I like shooting too, and so I did both

actually, but I like the high better shooting it. But a really outstanding thing that has happened with us, is that of the people who have used the needle exchange program in 1998, fifty percent of them went into treatment and stopped using injection drugs. I've been pretty active in trying to shut down one that we've got going in Topeka. The biggest problem that I've seen with needle - needle exchanges is that they they really don't do anything for the underlying behavior, and that is drug abuse. The theory is wonderful. You give an IV drug addict a needle that's clean. He uses only a clean needle, throws it away, never hands it off, and therefore doesn't pass disease on. But the problem is that needle exchanges presuppose that IV drug addicts are responsible folks and that's just simply not true, just almost by definition of their lifestyle. I - I agree with Doctor Voth in the sense that I don't like drug use

either, and yes, I would love to see everyone who is an alcoholic or junkie get into treatment, get clean and sober, and straighten up their lives. That's not the way it works. And the folks who work with addicts and alcoholics will tell you it's just addiction addiction is an extremely complex problem to deal with [uh] i don't care how many times you tell an alcoholic or junkie that you want them to stop, you can beg and plead until they want to do it it's not going to happen totally. We asked for that opinion and it came back [um] with a question [inaudible] in as much, they check they - what happened across the United States or some places not legal some places. It's been determined to be okay [um] and there is no no case law in Kansas. The attorney general had some question about whether or not an organization might find and sell facing some kind of a charge

from a district attorney who - who was opposed to these kind of programs, but at this point, none of this sort of thing has happened in Kansas, that I know of. I guess what I would want people to think about is that if unfortunately they had a son or daughter who was an injection drug user would they want them to die for that addiction.