Needle Exchanges
Re Sen. Diane Watson’s article (Commentary, Aug. 25) that presents a challenge to the federal government to fund needle and syringe exchange programs for drug addicts: Why should taxpayer money be squandered to enable addicts to further self-destruction? I am a black man, I fall in the said age group. And I don’t need the government or a tax-based agency to save me if I choose to practice suicide.
It is an affront to all good citizens of this nation and particularly to African Americans that a state senator would suggest that the only solution to curb AIDS-related deaths for drug addicts is to further enable them by paying for their needles and syringes. Sen. Watson’s suggestion gives comfort to those who allege that African Americans cannot make it without government intervention even to make the most personal and private of decisions of whether to kill oneself via drug addiction or otherwise.
Watson’s suggestion encourages racism toward African Americans as a group, by painting them as helpless without the federal government’s intervention.
BETE WOLDEYOHANNES
Pasadena
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