From the WASHINGTON EXAMINER:
The Obama administration has designated intravenous needle exchanges as a drug treatment program, allowing federal money set aside to treat addictions to be used to distribute syringes to narcotics users.
The change marks a dramatic shift in the argument over needle exchange programs. Two years ago President Obama lifted the 21-year ban on federally funded needle exchange programs as a necessary evil to reduce the spread of HIV among illicit drug users…
The new position, determined by the surgeon general, is that the states can receive federal funding for programs that hand out the syringes as a treatment.”U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Regina M. Benjamin told The Washington Examiner that needle exchange programs can serve as a gateway to treatment for drug addiction, HIV and other diseases…
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EDITOR: Yet Lancaster General Hospital, despite its vast profits and public health mission, will do nothing to assist the establishment of a full service syringe exchange to our our region.
