Harm Reduction: Why Drug Needle Exchanges are a Good Idea
Drug needle exchanges programs in a bid to avoid reuse and sharing could be a way to curb HIV outbreaks like the one in rural Indiana, experts believe.

The HIV “epidemic” in Indiana and a rise in Hepatitis C cases in Kentucky helped push those states to pass laws allowing communities to open drug needle exchanges. The spread of such diseases was traced to residents dissolving prescription painkillers and then injecting themselves sometimes up to 20 times a day with the same needle and passing it around.
Policy makers have now decided that they cannot put politics above public health.
Preventing HIV outbreaks among injection drug users
“People didn't care whose needle was whose before; that's what started this," Tara Burton, 25, a HIV patient told Reuters. "It's a lot better now," she said referring to the Scott County clinic, which runs drug needle exchange …show more content…
Benefiting both drug users and the communities

A lot of people seem to believe that if they allow a needle exchange program to operate in their community that they will see huge increases in the number of used syringes discarded on their streets. However, several studies http://www.avert.org/needle-and-syringe-programmes-nsps-hiv-prevention.htm show us that just the opposite is the case.
Recent research argues that Congress should make it easier for drug needle exchanges programs to exist.
A new commentary http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp1507252 published in the New England Journal of Medicine, argues that a ban on federal funding for needle-exchange programs should be lifted.
Studies have shown that needle exchange programs not only benefit individual drug users by helping to prevent the transmission of blood borne diseases such as HIV and Hepatitis C, they also give drug users alternatives to street