The Truth about Needle Exchange
The Truth about Needle Exchange Iam writing to commend the excellent editorial "Junkie Science" (March 31). It is right on target in saying that the strategy of distributing needles to addicts in...
...Research has shown a connection between the use of drugs and the contraction of AIDS due to the toxic and damaging effects of the drugs on the immune system...
...They affirmed new content and interpretive sentiments that editors had been incorporating into the books for more than a decade...
...During our debate in 1994 and again in 1996, King said with bravado that I had dome a great disservice to the Republican party by challenging him in a primary for Congress...
...I can get all the Newt-bashing I want in any mainstream newspaper, magazine, or evening news program...
...And could it be that he has decided that Gingrich is weak enough to be challenged publicly...
...But as a regular reader of International Watch World magazine, I have to say to my friend Brooks: Lighten up...
...Robert Previdi manhasset, ny Keep the Contract Alive Major Garrett, in his article "Newt Melts" (March 31), quoted many prominent Republicans who are critical of Speaker Gingrich's leadership...
...Call it Hey...
...The concurrent breakdown in law and order, community disinvestment, and decrease in the quality of life for residents prompted our community board to pass a lengthy resolution in favor of shutting the place down immediately (which was completely ignored by every one of our elected officials and the state Department of Health, which responded by renewing the needle-dispensers' contract for two more years...
...It states that there is a form of "libertarianism which has it that adults bent on self-destruction should be allowed—and helped" and an "old-fashioned morality that . . . government should not, in principle, play facilitator to any life-denying impulse...
...The Contract with America described the interests shared by leaders and followers...
...Science and, yes morality, not politics, should be the foundation for sound and effective drug policy, especially for those with AIDS...
...While National Review is depicting the Clintons and Gore as "Manchurian Candidates," you people provide space for Peter King to denigrate Newt Gingrich...
...I am personally of the opinion that giving clean syringes to junkies is exploitation and human experimentation (without true consent) of the ugliest variety...
...Peter King with interest and concern...
...Both of them take on the thankless yet necessary task of telling us that this or that literary emperor, indeed, has no clothes...
...This gives the impression that libertarians favor government-sponsored needle-exchange programs...
...Could it be that in January, King feared what could happen to him if he voted against the speaker...
...It's great that America has a silly magazine dedicated to every possible obsession: from complicated watches to pens to cigars...
...When I ran against King in the 1994 Republican primary for Congress, he supported Newt Gingrich...
...by publicly denouncing the speaker, King is inflicting long-term damage on the Republican party...
...I have never been a fan of human vivisection, but Eberstadt's treatment of Kathryn Harrison's book is about as close as I'd like to come...
...William D. Figgins Cape Coral, FL Iread Rep...
...Allen Weingarten Morristown, NJ Newt Ratings Are Up Rep...
...King voted for Gingrich as speaker in January 1997...
...King is a strong supporter of Clinton...
...Could this just have been an opportunist at work...
...Actually, there could even be a magazine for people who fashionably condemn fashion...
...The real tests will come during the next two years, above all in the influential states of California and Texas, as publishers submit new books and makeovers that they hope will find audiences in the 2000s...
...Fashion can be obnoxious...
...To place Kadare along with Solzhenitsyn, Faulkner, and Undset would be an outrage...
...It is right on target in saying that the strategy of distributing needles to addicts in order to prevent AIDS is nothing but "glorified guesswork...
...As to those who do, let them experience justice, namely, "As ye sow, so shall ye reap...
...You Don't Need That!—The Journal of Angry Utilitarianism, $2.95 an issue, on good paper...
...Fritz Pettyjohn Anchorage, AK It is a sad day in America when a magazine ignores the most corrupt administration our country has ever had and instead chooses to join in crucifying one of the few politicians who had the courage and the verbal skills to try to implement change...
...Harrison's treacly auto...
...Mike Murphy McLean, VA Knock the Literati This is a double thank-you for the reviews by Mary Eberstadt ("Pants on Fire!," March 24) and Stephen Schwartz ("Ismail Kadare's Prize Fight," March 24...
...I am sure that the speaker is trying to do this now...
...Many are not aware that the nee-dles-for-addicts campaign, like the push for marijuana as medicine, is a key strategy of the drug-legalization lobby, which seeks ready access to drugs and at the same time "safer" use of these mind-altering and addictive substances...
...There's even a pretty good magazine dedicated to the micro-details of Republican strategy, fratricide, gossip, and plotting...
...The point is, no matter what King wants to do about Gingrich, it should be done in private...
...For example, did President Clinton ask King to come out publicly in support of Anthony Lake, and if so, why...
...William L. Mobraaten Sarasota, FL Don't Knock Fun Mags Igot a chuckle out of David Brooks's "Accessorize, Accessorize" (March 31...
...Hang in there, Newt...
...As insidious as the exchange itself is the misinformation disseminated by exchange proponents, oftentimes the very researchers whose studies conclude that their data do not "provide clear evidence that needle exchange programs decrease HIV infection...
...I would find it easy to trust King's motivation if not for a few points...
...Most of the textbooks that Saxe takes to task appeared well before the standards did...
...Peter King's reckless assertion that Newt Gingrich's approval rating is lower than the ebola virus's should not stand unchallenged ("Why I Oppose Newt," March 31...
...I certainly did not subscribe to The Weekly StanDARD to get more of the same...
...The proposed national standards tried to legitimize misinformation and shady historiography already to be found in some textbooks...
...I have closely observed and studied needle exchange as both a former member of my local community board and a longtime resident of my Lower Eastside community, where I live two blocks from the local needle "hand-out" storefront that dispenses upwards of 20,000 syringes a week...
...King would do well to remember Ronald Reagan's admonition, "Thou shalt not speak ill about another Republican...
...It is true that libertarians would allow people to engage in adverse behavior...
...It was an exciting program, widely supported by conservatives, which introduced changes that would have improved all facets of our government...
...The editorial misrepresents libertarianism, which opposes governmental involvement in drug use and other private concerns...
...Some polls do show the speaker and the ebola virus at essentially equivalent approval ratings...
...Needle-exchange programs have not been shown to have any advantage over drug-treatment programs...
...The Orwellian concept of "harm reduction" upon which they base some pie-in-the-sky notion of "safe drug use" has been nearly impossible to repudiate, particularly when given credence by the New York Times and other newspapers...
...My own research reveals that no public-opinion survey contains such an outcome...
...biography deserves every surgical cut and excision Eberstadt inflicts as she anatomizes the transplanted segments of Harrison's tale...
...A clear majority, however, shows Gingrich with a higher rating than the virus...
...Gilbert T. Sewall American Textbook Council New York, NY...
...Neither of these strategies is compassionate, humane, or beneficial for the addict or society...
...Studies to date have been inconclusive...
...Simultaneously, Eberstadt reveals the prurient gullibility of so many literati who swallow the book whole and find it delectable...
...There is no valid scientific evidence that needle-exchange programs have resulted in the alleviation of HIV/AIDS...
...It would be good to reestablish the principles of the contract and present them in a way that will again encourage leaders to lead...
...Stephen Schwartz's comprehensive review of the works of the Albanian writer Ismail Kadare does a valuable service to those like me whose only access to Kadare's work comes from what publishers provide...
...Make no mistake about it...
...What precisely does King's backing of the president do for the interests of the Republican party and the country...
...In fact, there is evidence that these programs do more harm than good...
...Father Gregory M. Schweers Irving, TX Battle of the Textbooks In David Warren Saxe's otherwise cogent article "History Standards: Still an Outrage" (March 3), one point needs clarification...
...During our debates and in the press, he has made it clear that he supports Clinton and deals with him extensively...
...Maybe Peter King supporters will be motivated to become subscribers to The Weekly Standard and offset those of us to whom you are now history...
...Sadly, the Nobel prize has been too often a kind of prix du jour for whatever nationalist literature the Swedish Academy wishes to promote that year...
...Stephanie Haynes Alpine, TX It was extremely heartening to read your junkie-science editorial...
...But if the alternative is a society of Mao suits and only one kind of wristwatch, available at the People's Supply Store #14, sign me up for Pen World...
...The libertarian view is that government's role should be confined to controlling aggression and should not be extended to any social program, whether it helps or harms its recipients...
...The readers of The Weekly Standard must now ask themselves: What will King do next to support himself at the expense of the Republican party...
...The ultimate influence of the 1994 standards on American history textbooks cannot yet be determined...
...Giving needles to addicts for the injection of drugs not only perpetuates drug addiction but puts communities at risk for increased criminal and violent behavior related to the use of dangerous drugs...
...Nancy Sosman New York, NY Your editorial addresses "two competing moralities...
Vol. 2 • April 1997 • No. 30
