education would be better than either choice

[Laudanum]

my first experience was nothing short of an unsterile shooting gallery - literally one person right after another.

no doubt that's how i ended up with hep c.

yet 30 years later all i see is "free is good, any is bad, both are wrong." THE best and only successful way to deal with this issue is through education.

teach both young and old just the basics about sterilization, how diseases are communicated by contact, and how *e a s y* it is to do things the right way.

personally, as a diabetic i have access to boxes of syringes yet just because i'm lazy or too cheap to buy new ones, i will reuse and reuse dozens of times, but i practice clean techniques and never end up with infections. all it takes is a little alcohol and a basic understanding of what is known as "surgically clean." That's much different than being sterile which is what most people think is required for safe iv use.

sterility requires baking instruments in an oven (called an autoclave*) at a certain time and pressure; surgically clean is simply being "clean of common pathogens.**"

in truth, this is just another nit-picking argument over should we (as in the royal "we the people") be allowed to do what we want with our own bodies. For that answer you need to go back to the 1920's when the entire issue came to a boil and the bible thumpers won the day. Since then everything that god doesn't like is illegal. period. Nothing short of a revolution will change that. So, clean needles, free needles, medical use cannabis, etc. are all just a waste of time. Sorry to disappoint ya, but it's your law.


*A strong, pressurized, steam-heated vessel, as for laboratory experiments, sterilization, or cooking.
**An agent that causes disease, especially a living microorganism such as a bacterium or fungus.

:party-smi

[candy]

As a nurse, an injector myself, and someone who has worked at Needle Exchanges and done HIV Prevention and counseling, education is the way to go. That is the whole concept of harm reduction and the goal of harm reduction is to create education so that it is passed among one's peers.
Obviously, it is impossible to provide a sterile environment or equipment to injectors. Even having what a "surgically clean" site or equipment is going to be an impossibility to many who inject. What is taught is more of a clean technique and the importance of using your own equipment, keeping it clean, and handwashing.
I doubt many of us have really thought about thoroughly washing the site we are going to hit. We do supply alcohol pads and teach to clean the site in a special way, but will they do it? Some do and the best we can hope for is that those who have been educated, take it with them and use it to teach others.
Using a new point each time is the best way to go, along with washing your hands and cleaning the site, and using new water each time. What is not known is that infections come from the standing water that users will keep in a glass or bottle and reuse it to inject with and as a rinse.
It is really those concepts that the CDC and other researchers have found work best.
I had the opportunity a few years back to work on a CDC research project that was based on one person passing on the info they learned back to their peers. What the research found is that this method worked best at lowering the rates of HIV/HCV infection and other types of infections, whether they be systemic or skin infections, such as abscesses.
For many years, it was not known that bleach did not kill the Hep C virus. Although it kills HIV, it was thought that it would kill almost anything as well. Hep C can live on any surface for up to 45 days or longer.
And when you are dealing with populations such as homeless injectors, teaching and being creative can be tough when it comes to clean techniques.

And nothing is really free is it? But if our government could only see that Harm Reduction and Needle Exchange can drastically reduce the number of new infections each year, they would save a bundle on healthcare. But, they would rather pay for all those expensives meds and hospital care than the mere pennies to provide clean needles and some great information. Hell, half those who work at Needle Exchanges are volunteers, just looking to share some info and help other junkies. The cost to have them in every city would be far less than paying for the care of those with HIV/HCV.

It is a great concept and I really welcome anyone with questions or some techniques of their own to share. That is how we learn and keep each other safe.