Supply of needles

Press, 26 December 1987, Page 16

Supply of needles

Sir, —I am sick of the tendency to use “human rights” to label breaking of the law as “bravery.” Let addicts get clean needles, but it was against the law. New hypodermic syringes for addicts will have little effect on A.1.D.5., but it is a convenient cover-up for the true cause of the spread of the plague, for I consider drug users and promiscuous homosexuals to be of the same cohesive group of antisocial compulsives. I attack the pressures from well-meaning groups who have put New Zealand at the head of Western countries in encouraging homosexual access to young people. In Britain the relaxed law applies to adults, as recommended by the Wolfenden report. Most American states still treat homosexual activity as criminal, and even the

female age of consent is 18. Here, I consider that molestation of young children incurs less and less punishment, all perverts getting a cheap ride on our moral hydroslide.—Yours, etc., VARIAN J. WILSON. December 18. 1987. Sir, —The decision of the Pharmaceutical Society of New Zealand to discipline one of its members for supplying sterile needles to intravenous drug users is a sad reflection on a group of health professionals. Did the society consider the following facts in reaching their decision? — (1) On a per capita basis, New Zealand has an A.I.D.S. problem equal to Britain. This was clearly stated in a recent issue (September 23) of the “New Zealand Medical Journal” and should be a sobering fact to those complacent about the problem in New Zealand. (2) Intravenous drug users are not waiting patiently for the law to change and if they do not have sterile needles available they will share. (3) According to a leading American epidemiologist, “if we don’t control the virus among the intravenous drug-user population, we don’t control the virus.” The Pharmaceutical Society’s decision is an example of the type of “highrisk” behaviour that enables the A.I.D.S. virus to thrive.—Yours, etc.,

DIANE SIMONE. December 15, 1987.