Let's Have Safe Drug Use!

Hello everyone. I am Matt’s wife; you can call me Jak. I have my own blog where I post my creative writing and photographic pursuits. However, I have a political thought to express today, and I thought it would fit better on "Thoughts on the Passing Scene."

Wall Street Journal article “Heroin Program’s Deadly Toll” complains that workers whose jobs ask them to provide clean needles in exchange for dirty ones are now suffering from their poor working conditions.
They 1. Earn “little or no money”; 2. Work in “bleak urban” conditions; 3. Are given less training and support compared to other social-service workers; 4. Find it especially hard to cope, since many workers have past drug use or “personal stresses”; and 5. Are “encouraged to put in long hours.” As a result of these circumstances, many workers are overdosing on drugs as a means of suicide. Author Justin Scheck argues that these working conditions need to change.


Workers earn “little or no money”
Scheck argues that the “minuscule” $14 million that needle exchange programs receive from state and local governments is not enough money to pay workers and provide adequate supplies. Programs also need federal funds, he claims, which are currently banned. He states that conventional drug treatment programs receive $1.75 billion from the feds alone. Unfortunately for Scheck’s argument, not all drug treatment programs are created equal. Therapies and rehabilitation programs and workers should receive more money since they seek to cure the addict’s root issue, addiction, not just his symptoms, disease. Therapists also spend years in school, earning degrees from accredited universities. Needle exchangers do not even need high school diplomas. Just as McDonald’s cooks earn less than Italian restaurant chefs, needle exchangers should not make as much as licensed therapists.

Workers operate in “bleak urban” conditions
A needle exchanger’s job requirements are as follows: teach people how to properly administer anti-overdose medication, inject heroine safely, access rehab, and exchanged dirty needles for clean ones. With such a job description, no one should expect a plush corner office. Serious and regular heroine users live in run-down apartments and on the streets. Any program that attempts to reach out to such people will be located on the same dirty urban streets in which addicts live. It would be foolish to expect working conditions to be anything other than bleak.

Workers are given less training and support compared to other social-service workers
Scheck does not say they receive no training, simply less training. Support and training are dependent upon the finances available, and money is a limited resource. When looking at the number of social workers who help abused children and mothers, starving families, rape victims and survivors of natural disasters get their lives back, it becomes obvious that they have earned their priority. Their work helps people regain their lives. Needle exchanges do not help addicts quit using drugs, it only allows them to prolong their use. Needle exchange program workers have not proven that they can benefit society enough to warrant more elaborate training and support programs.

Since many workers have past drug use or “personal stresses,” they find it especially hard to cope
Alcoholics should not be bartenders, child rapists should not work in day care centers, and former drug users should not pass out heroine needles. Also, people whose lives are so stressful they feel the need to abuse drugs should not pass out heroine needles. These people are simply in the wrong field of work.

Workers are “encouraged to put in long hours”
This working condition complaint begs the obvious question: who has not been encouraged to work long hours? Especially workers in a nonprofit field, where people and resources are limited. Lawyers, police officers, and teachers are also pushed into long workdays, not all of whom are handsomely paid. Scheck does not define exactly what “encouraging” techniques are used.

Simply put, needle exchangers work terrible jobs in poor conditions. However, these people do not live in communistic societies, they are free to quit their jobs and find new ones. Just because they provide a public service does not mean they deserve ideal, or even pleasant, working conditions. In a world where equality is everything, we have come to expect that the unequal, no matter how disproportionate, be made equal.